


Once Again

by IncompleteSentanc (Erava)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Capable Sakura, Gen, Kind Sakura, Rebirth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2018-12-09 16:03:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 37,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11672448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erava/pseuds/IncompleteSentanc
Summary: After their long, arduous fight with Kaguya, Sakura's collapses under Sasuke's genjutsu.There, she meets a man and makes a decision that shakes reality itself to its core.(A Time-Travel fix-it, of sorts)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “When the colors fade and it turns to grey,  
> We’ll calmly walk away, walk away from the fray,  
> When the structure falls and all else fails,  
> We will build it once again.  
> We can climb high, higher than before,  
> We could stand by while it burns to the floor,  
> Though we cannot fly,  
> We will build and the wounds will mend,  
> As we build it once again.” - Once Again, Tristam
> 
> (A different take on the premise of Waves, and a new direction for it to take us down.)

* * *

 

 

 

There’s a moment in time.

A frozen second, one that will be ingrained in Sakura forever.

A hand, punched through her chest - and then there’s darkness.

A moment of pain, of excruciating pain, and then the world around her goes dark.

Until she blinks her eyes open.

White surrounds her, a blinding abyss compared to the darkness she’d just awoken from. “You’re here. That’s good.” A voice says behind her. Sakura whips around, her hand flying to her chest - but there’s no hole in it, and it’s not Sasuke behind her. Instead, an old man floats cross-legged over the white, white abyss. 

“Who are you?” She whispers, taking in his appearance. He almost,  _ almost _ looks like Obito had as a the Jūbi’s jinchūriki. There are horns on his head and a third, blood red eye nestled between them, some sort of mix of Sharingan and Rinnegan. The sight of it makes her uneasy, an ache in her chest reminding her of- “Sasuke!” She gasps, the memory hitting her like a brick. 

He’d punched a hole through her chest, that  _ asshole.  _

Except… apparently he hadn’t. Only flesh and bone under her hand, her uniform shirt untouched. “What…”

“A genjutsu to incapacitate you.” The man before her says quietly and grimly. She looks up at him again, refocusing on the strange, alien being. “I am the Sage of Six Paths, and your teammates are the reincarnations of my sons.”

Sakura stares at him for a moment.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Even now, they fight one another.” The supposed Sage says grimly and Sakura hesitates for a second before shoving to her feet. There’s solid ground under her shoes, but all she can see is empty, white, white space below her. It’s disconcerting for a moment before she refocuses on his words. 

“ Naruto and Sasuke are fighting?”

“They’re killing each other.” The Sage confirms unhappily, an uneasy shiver running through her. 

“No, that’s wrong. Sasuke’s talking crazy, but Naruto would  _ never _ kill him.” She’s  _ certain  _ of that. 

“Perhaps. But that is not why I brought you here. Speak to me, Sakura Haruno. Tell me your dreams. Your desires. What do you want for yourself, and what do you want for the world?” He asks in a quiet, grave voice.

Were it not so unsettling, she’d scoff and ignore it. But the intensity of his stare is beyond unnerving, and for a moment she can barely get her mouth to work. “I-I… I want to be able to defend Naruto and Sasuke. To be the one protecting them, for once. I want… to heal my…” She hesitates for a moment before borrowing Naruto’s words, “my precious people.”

“And for the world?” The Sage inquires.

“I don’t know.” Sakura admits. She’s never thought about her goals on that scale. “I want to have peace.” 

“Peace? At what cost?” He asks, and this time her answer is instant and vehement.

“Not at this cost. Not at the cost it’s taking us so far. Forty  _ thousand _ dead in one night…” Sakura shakes her head, horrified grief crawling down her spine. 

_ Neji… _

“You think the cost is too high, then?” He muses, frowning softly at her, and she holds his eerie gaze unwaveringly. After a moment, he exhales a slow breath. “What if I told you you could change this, Sakura Haruno?”

Sakura stares at him and he leans forward a bit, blinking slow eyes.

“What if I told you you could save them all?”

Her mouth feels dry all of a sudden, and it takes her a second to respond. “I would ask you how.” She says softly. It’s hitting her now that this might be real. That this might truly be the Sage of Six Paths, who had given Naruto and Sasuke the strange abilities she’d seen them fight with. “How?” Sakura whispers, and wonders if this man actually holds the answers.

The man smiles, small and sad. “I will teach you.” He tells her. The world goes dark around her, a tingling sensation spreading through her. 

She can feel herself drifting away, but not before she hears him speak again, as if directly in her ear.

“I will teach you everything you’ll ever need to know.”

 

* * *

 

In another place, in another time, three year old Sakura Haruno wakes up with an achy chest and itchy skin.

  
  


She’s just had the strangest of dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

Sakura’s three when she first starts to have her dreams.

She doesn’t really notice them at first. She’s only three, after all, and far more concerned with things like playing.

But Sakura’s also three when she sees someone climb straight up a wall with only his feet. Her interest is immediately piqued, and her mother takes her aside that very day. “Shinobi and kunoichi,” She explains to her. “They make up the military of Konoha. They keep us safe.”

“Are you a kunoichi?” She’d asked her mother, eyeing the hitai-ate on her forehead, and Mebuki had smiled.

“I am. And your father is a shinobi.”

“I want to be one, too.” Sakura had decided, and it was as simple as that in her mind.

The reality was different, of course. Becoming a shinobi was no easy feat, and she was only three when she’d decided it all. 

She’s four when that idea becomes a lot more realistic.

It’s after a round of particularly bad bullying. Someone had forced her face into the sandbox and it still hurts when she goes to bed that night.

She dreams, though, as she always does - and this time, the dream stays with her. It’s a man, floating in a white abyss, looking down at her with three eyes and two horns while she nervously looks back up at him from under her bangs. “Hello.” She greets quietly, feeling like she’s done it many times before.

She probably has. Her mother taught her  _ manners, _ and even if she didn’t really remember the dreams, that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.

“Hello, Sakura.” The man returns with a warm smile. It makes his strange, alien-esque face look a little less scary, and she smiles tentatively back at him.

“You look funny.” She tells the man, who smiles softly at her in response.

“You look funny to me, too.”

“What are you?”

“A person. Just as you are, but a little different.” He explains calmly and she eyes him doubtfully at that. “You should be more polite.”

“But I’m just dreaming.” Sakura protests, frowning.

“Are you? Or are you doing something else entirely?”

“What?” Sakura questions, then wrinkles her nose and scowls at the man. “What do you mean? I’m asleep. So I’m dreaming.” She argues and the man gives her an amused look.

“Then I suppose you don’t want to learn something new, do you?”

She blinks, head tilting a little as her curiosity is so easily piqued. “Learn what?”

The man moves, pulling one hand back to grasp the staff against his back. “This is a shakujo. If you want, I can teach you how to use it to fend off your bullies.”

Her hands automatically fly to her forehead, a shamed blush warming her cheeks. “You know about that?” She asks in a small voice and the man nods severely at her. 

“I do. I can help you, if you want.” He holds out the staff horizontally before him, offering it.

It’s much too big for her, but the man insists, pointedly rattling the thing in front of her. With some unease, Sakura pulls her hands away from her forehead and takes the staff - only to pause and watch with wide eyes as it shrinks down to match her small stature.

“Wow.” She breathes out, tentatively rattling the shakujo’s rings. “You can teach me to… keep myself safe with this?” Sakura asks hesitantly.

The strange, alien looking man smiles at her. 

“I can teach you that and more, Sakura.”

She can’t quite help the small smile tugging at her lips. She ducks her head shyly, looking at the staff instead. Her mind whirs for a moment, thinking deeply before she looks up at the man through her lashes. “Can we learn now?” She asks with quiet eagerness.

The man smiles gently at her. “Of course.”

* * *

 

 

Sakura’s three when she starts to dream, but it’s not until she’s four that she actually pays attention to them. Usually, they’d slip right back out of her mind, lost to the carefreeness of being so young. 

But then she started to be bullied, pushed and shoved and laughed at, and the dreams started to help her.

“Like this?” Sakura asks, hesitating a moment before she drops low and sweeps her leg out. She feels silly doing it, embarrassed until the alien man nods at her. 

“Good. Use more force.”

“I don’t want to hurt anymore.” Sakura says before she does as he tells her. He nods again, a small frown pulling at his lips.

“Look at me, Sakura-chan.” The man instructs gently but firmly, and she winces a little before meeting his gaze.

She can’t help the way her stare darts to the creepy third eye on his forehead before settling on his two normal ones. He doesn’t seem to notice, though.

He never does.

She wonders what it’s like to have that kind of confidence in himself.

“I’m not teaching you this so you can hurt people.” The man tells her, her attention refocusing. “I’m teaching you this so you can stop them from hurting you.”

“But it’ll hurt them.”

“Yes. And that’s an unfortunate truth.” The man confirms with a nod. “But it’s the thought that counts, Sakura-chan. It’s the intent. I’m teaching you to defend yourself, not to hurt others. That difference means all the world for people like us.”

“Like us?” Sakura echoes, intrigued in spite of herself, and the man nods severely at her.

“We don’t like hurting people. Unfortunately, that makes us… different from most people.” The man pauses for a long moment, clearly in thought, and Sakura waits patiently for him to speak again. “Shinobi use kunai, shuriken, and swords to fight. What do all of those things have in common, Sakura-chan?”

She hesitates for a long minute, thinking hard. It feels like a trick question, almost, so she’s hesitant when she speaks. “They cut?”

“They cut.” The man nods. “They draw blood, from the smallest cut to the deepest wound. They are weapons, used to harm people. Sometimes in self-defense, sometimes in aggression. But…” The man flips over his staff, offering the end of it to her, and she reaches up to grab it. “Have you ever seen someone kill a man with a stick?” He asks quietly.

Sakura bites her lip, taking the staff slowly from him. It shrinks as she does, fitting her height instead of his, and after a moment, she shakes her head. “No.” Sakura admits.

“That’s because they rarely do.” The man murmurs. “This is a weapon, Sakura - but it’s not the weapon of a killer. It’s the weapon of a protector.”

Sakura looks at the staff, the rings chiming softly as they brush against one another. She watches it for a long minute before looking up at the man through her lashes. 

“I want to be a protector.” She tells him softly and he offers her a warm smile.

“I know, Sakura-chan.” He responds fondly. 

 

“I know.”

 

* * *

 

In her dreams, she learns to defend herself. She learns how to use her opponent’s own body weight against them, and sometimes, she learns a little about using a staff to fight.

In reality, she doesn’t have a staff.

In reality, she’s too scared to fight back.

And then she isn’t.

“Hey!” Sakura shouts, startling the two boys hovering over a third one. “Stop it!” She cries out, running towards them. One of them stops mid-kick, looking at her in confusion, while the other one scoffs.

“Why? What’re you gonna do, cry about it?” He mocks, turning back to kick at the boy on the ground.

The boy looks at her with wide, startled blue eyes, and Sakura drops.

Her foot sweeps out, slamming into the ankle of the kicking boy, and he tumbles with a shout. He lands on top of the boy on the ground, who protests loudly, and the third boy backs up with wide eyes. “Get away from him!” Sakura demands, her voice rising painfully high in pitch, and the boy he’d knocked over scrambles to his feet.

She quickly straightens up from her crouch, bracing herself, but the boy just grabs his friend and tugs at him. “Come on, let’s go!” He shouts to his friend, the pair of them running.

Sakura watches them for a moment, then looks at the boy on the ground. He sits up and looks at her, big blue eyes blinking in confusion. Then his bloody lips part into a beaming smile. “That was so cool! How did you do that?!” He demands eagerly, almost annoyingly loud, but Sakura’s too embarrassed to care.

She blushes hot red and looks at the ground, toeing the dirt. “I just wanted them to stop.” She offers in explanation.

“It was so cool!” The boy repeats loudly. “Maa, I wish I could do that. Can you teach me? Please, please, please?”

Her face feels like it’s on fire when she looks at him. He standing up now, brushing dirt off his orange shirt, and he beams at her when he sees her looking. 

“I… I guess?” Sakura offers uncertainly - but the boy doesn’t even seem to notice her tone.

“Awesome!” He declares cheerfully. “C’mon, let’s go to a training ground. You know, where the  _ ninja _ train.” He grabs her hand, yanking her forward, and she winces a little at the rudeness before hurrying alongside him. “I’m Naruto Uzumaki, by the way. I’m gonna be a ninja too!” 

She’s not really sure how to respond to his ridiculous level of sheer  _ confidence _ in his declaration, but after a moment, she smiles weakly at him. “I’m Sakura Haruno.” She says, and more quietly adds, “I’m gonna be a ninja, too.”

His smile is so bright she can’t help but return it.

 

* * *

Naruto is loud and annoying, but there’s something that draws Sakura to him. Something that makes her feel like they’re friends, even though they’ve only just met.

He’s annoyingly slow to learn, but something gives her the patience necessary to teach him, and when she goes home, he’s more or less able to use the same attack.

“You’ve decided, then?” The man asks her that night, after she’s gone to bed.

“Yes.” Sakura confirms, tentatively practicing the latest move the man had shown her.

“Lift your arm higher. Your grip must be firm.” The man corrects her and she adjusts. “The life of a shinobi is perilous.”

“Per ilous?”

“Dangerous.” He explains and she tries the move again. “Good. Better. You grow more confident every day.” He muses and she offers him a small smile at that, cheeks burning. “You’ll be forced to hurt people.” 

“I know.” Sakura admits, because she’s only four but she’s far too bright for her own good. “But I can protect people.” She says, looking at him. 

“You want to protect people?” The man repeats questioningly and she nods.

“Yes. I want to protect…” Sakura hesitates, something tickling at her mind. “I want to protect my precious people.” She says softly, the words echoing strangely in her own ears.

For some reason, this makes the man stare at her with unnerving intensity. 

“Then I will teach you to protect them.” He murmurs, presenting his staff to her. She takes it, holding it the way he’d shown her to before. “Tomorrow, tell your mother that you want to use a staff to fight. It’s time you begin practicing in the real world what I teach you here.”

Sakura nods firmly, slipping into the starting stance and bracing herself.

When the man attacks her, she’s ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So soon and already loving the huge response. I hope I don't let any of you down! Enjoy! ☺


	3. Chapter 3

Sakura’s five when she starts at the Academy. 

The  _ Shinobi _ Academy.

It’s as exciting as it is scary, and Sakura holds Naruto’s hand the whole way through the ceremony.

He’s annoying, but he’s also a comforting presence to her. Something she’s used to, even if his loudness can sometimes be…  _ over the top. _ “I’m gonna be Hokage!” He declares the first day of class. “Naruto Uzumaki, and don’t forget it!” He cries out before sitting back down.

There’s a moment of awkward silence before Iruka-sensei looks at the next person over.

Her.

She stands up and clears her throat, blushing a little at having all the attention on her. “I-I’m, um. Sakura Haruno. My goal is to… to protect the people I care about.” She says quietly, then sits back down.

Iruka offers her a small smile before moving on to the next person. 

“You’re awesome, Sakura-chan.” Naruto whispers to her, beaming smile and all, and something in her relaxes at his confidence. “I want to protect the people I care about, too. My precious people.” He says, the phrase ringing in her mind.

She smiles, but something in her is left shaken by his words.

They sound familiar in a way nothing else ever has.

 

* * *

 

The man swings his staff at her feet, sweeping her clean off them, and Sakura falls flat on her back on the invisible floor. 

She stares up into the white abyss around them, blinking and frowning. After a moment, the man steps up to tower over her. “You were clumsy. Something is on your mind.”

“Why am I here?” Sakura asks quietly, taking his hand when he offers it. He helps her up and she straightens her red shirt, frowning. “Do other people come here, too?”

“No. This place is special.” The man informs her, head tilting slightly. “You worry. You fear. Have I done something to make you feel this way?”

“N-no.” Sakura says quickly, biting her lip. “But it’s strange, isn’t it? Why me? Why not someone…”  _ more confident, more cheerful, more like Naruto, _ she doesn’t say.

“I didn’t choose you, Sakura-chan.” The man murmurs, his staff reaching out to tap her forehead. She jerks a bit, startled, and looks at him owlishly. “You chose me. You simply don’t remember.”

“When I was younger?” She asks, confused, and gets a noncommittal hum for her efforts. 

“Arguably. Younger in spirit.” He muses, tapping her forehead gently before retracting the staff. “You’re older than you know, Sakura-chan.” He flips the staff around, presenting it to her, and it’s almost automatic to take it now. “One day, you’ll understand.”

Her skin tingles, hair standing upright, and the man slides into a combat position. She hesitates for one brief second, then lunges.

 

* * *

 

“It’s perfect.” Sakura proclaims, looking over the staff her mother presents her. It had taken  _ ages _ to convince the sceptical woman that she sincerely wanted one.

“You’ll have a hard time fighting with this.” Mebuki says uncertainly, but Sakura twirls the staff once, weighing it and then balancing it on the tip of her finger. Mebuki watches, blinking rapidly, and Sakura beams up at her. 

“Thank you so much, mama.” Sakura says, lowering the staff to hug her tightly. The woman returns the hug more gently, hand settling on the back of Sakura’s head. 

“Don’t worry about it, darling. If you’re sure this is what you want, I support you.” She says, and Sakura’s insides twist warmly. 

“Thank you.” She repeats, pulling back from the hug. She smiles up at her mother, who smiles back with a hint of moisture in her eyes.

“I’m proud of you, Sakura. No matter what.”

Sakura isn’t sure how to respond to that, so she just hugs her mother again. This time, when she pulls away, she does so with a small bounce to her step. Excitement bubbles in her stomach. “I need to go show Naruto. This way we can really practice together.” She says eagerly and her mother grins.

“Alright, but be careful.” Her mother says, like she always does. “And be home by sundown!”

 

* * *

 

Sakura starts at the Academy when she’s five, but they don’t start teaching them taijutsu until she’s six.

There are some… complications.

“Where in the  _ hell _ did you two learn to fight like this?” Iruka demands her and Naruto. She looks down at the ground, toeing it anxiously, while Naruto defiantly stares up at Iruka.

“Sakura-chan taught me. She’s  _ brilliant! _ And her style’s way better than yours!” He defends her - unnecessarily, really, as Iruka hadn’t said anything  _ bad… _

“Haruno-san?” Iruka questions, his voice gentling a bit, but there’s an uncertain note to it now. She winces a little, unable to help herself. She hates the attention on her, and she hates that she doesn’t know how to respond. 

_ Oh, the man in my dreams taught me how to fight, _ sounds every bit as ridiculous as you’d expect. 

She knows normal people don’t have dreams like she does. She knows to keep the man a secret.

She doesn’t know how to  _ lie _ about it.

“Um…”

“Leave her alone!” Naruto defends her.  _ Loudly. _ “She just wanted to help me get better is all! I sucked at taijutsu!”

“Because no one’s supposed to have taught you yet!” Iruka protests sharply. “Either of you! Taijutsu is an Academy basic lesson, not something you’re meant to learn outside of it. Every Konoha-made taijutsu style is based off the Academy’s taijutsu. And you’re…  _ butchering it.” _ Iruka bemoans.

Sakura shrugs helplessly, staring intently at the floor. “Sorry, Iruka-sensei.”

“Sorry.” Naruto echoes, much less sincerely. 

After a long moment, Iruka sighs heavily. “The style you’re using isn’t a bad style - but it’s not an official Konoha based taijutsu style, I can tell that much. It is, however, similar to the Uchiha and the Hyūga’s varieties, which makes me wonder. Where are you learning this?” He questions and Sakura bites her lip.

“From Sakura-chan.” Naruto repeats promptly.

Sakura winces, shoulders curling in on herself.

“Haruno-san?” Iruka prods again, his voice warning, and Sakura cringes.

“I-... I-...”

“Leave her alone.” Naruto protests and Iruka sighs heavily.

“Uzumaki-san, leave.  _ Now.” _ Iruka commands firmly.

Firmly enough that for once, after a moment’s hesitation, he actually listens. Naruto grabs her hand as he passes, squeezing it before letting go, and she lifts her gaze enough to watch him leave the room. He shoots one last scowl at Iruka’s back before closing the door.

Sakura takes a short, shallow breath…

And instantly bursts into tears.

Iruka’s almost as startled as she is, eyes widening as great, heaving sobs escape her.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I don’t know what I did wrong but I’m sorry.” She sobs, half-incoherent.

In the end, she spends so much time crying that when she finally stops, Iruka’s too relieved to ask any more questions.

She heads home with red, puffy eyes, torn between feeling accomplished for keeping her secret and ashamed for being such a crybaby.

 

* * *

“You did the right thing.” The man tells her, easily blocking her side-kick with his forearm. He brushes her away, hand sweeping up, and the flat of his palm smacks into her chest. She tumbles backwards, breath leaving her in a huff, and she sits up to see him lowering his hand. He looks down at her with a small frown. “They wouldn’t understand this, Sakura-chan.”

_ “I  _ don’t understand this.” Sakura complains, standing up and sliding into formation. The man does as well, and they move in tandem. “Why  _ am _ I here? What is this place? Who are you? What are you  _ teaching _ me?” She questions rapidly, ducking under jabs and sweeping legs and hands. It takes forty seconds for him to knock her back off her feet.

It’s an improvement over when she first started and could only last three seconds.

“Sakura-chan.” The man says severely. “Look at me.” She does as commanded, taking in the man’s visage. He never fails to look creepy, a small shudder running through her when she sees him, but she can hold his gaze now without being distracted by the third eye blinking at her. The man kneels down, offering her his hand. “This place is our world, Sakura-chan. Yours and mine.” He says, gesturing around them as he pulls her to her feet. She glances around the endlessly white abyss, then arches a dubious brow at the man.

“Why are you here? Because you belong here. What is this place? Our world. Who am I?” The man pauses for a moment. “I am the Sage of Six Paths. And what I am teaching you is how to be my voice in the world.”

“The… Sage of Six Paths?” Sakura echoes, squinting at the man, who looks severely down at her.

“I created what has become ninjutsu. My brother created what has become taijutsu. Together, we shaped the world - but that shape has changed since we died, all those years ago.” The man says quietly. Sadly.

Sakura grimaces softly, listening intently.

“When we died, the world was at peace. Now, it has fallen to war.”

“But the war’s over.” Sakura protests.

“Is it?” He questions, and for a split second, the white abyss becomes something else.

Her skin tingles, her chest aches, and bodies surround her, limp in the bloodied dirt. Some of them are human, some of them are… something else.

Then she blinks, and the world is white again.

“Our world.” She repeats softly, blinking with a dizzied stare, and the man nods.

“Our world. And soon enough, war will come to it again.” The man reaches out, setting his hand on her shoulder, and the other offers her his staff. For once, she doesn’t move to take it, too focused on his face. “You’ve trusted me implicitly since the day you woke up.” He murmurs, which doesn’t make sense. Since the day she was born, does he mean? “I ask you to continue to trust me. To keep this place - our world - to just us.”

“What about Naruto?” Sakura asks without thinking, but doesn’t try to take back the words.

“Naruto… is a precious person to you, Sakura-chan.” The man smiles softly, approval blossoming on his alien face. “I wouldn’t dare take that from you. Not after everything you’ve done. Teach him what I teach you, if you like. But don’t tell him about me yet. Someday - but not yet.”

Sakura bites her lip, thinking for a long minute, then nods slowly.

“Alright.”

She reaches out and takes the staff from him, pulling it close to herself, and he steps back, a second staff appearing in his hand. “You will do it, then, Sakura-chan? You will be the voice of the Sage of Six Paths?” He asks quietly, and after a short pause, she nods again.

“Yes. I will.” She says with all the conviction a six year old can muster.

He smiles gently at her. “Let us begin, then.”

 

* * *

 

“Sometimes,” The Sage tells her quietly, “the truth is so unbelievable that people will take it for a lie.”

Sakura thinks of that the next time Iruka asks her who she’s learning taijutsu from. “I dreamt it all.” She tells him, and Iruka stares at her strangely while she smiles confidently up at him.

Eventually, after the third or fourth time, he doesn’t try to ask anymore.

Sakura makes a mental note to listen to the Sage more often.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, Sakura has actual dreams. Usually, they’re nightmares.

Vivid nightmares of death and tears, of mourning and horror, and every time she wakes up sobbing. Whether she’s four or seven.

“I hate them.” She tells the Sage, who frowns softly down at her.

“You shouldn’t.” He warns her, parrying her staff with his own. He’s wielding his usual shakujō, while she uses a bō staff with twin, weighted metal ends. “Dreams are mirrors into your inner mind, Sakura-chan.”

“Isn’t  _ this _ my inner mind, then?” She asks and he smiles, catching her jab with a sweep of his shakujō. 

“No, Sakura-chan. This is  _ our _ inner mind. A connection between my mind and your own. Your mind is different.”

“I don’t like it.” Sakura says, unease creeping in suddenly. “Why is my inner mind so… scary?” She asks quietly.

“Because you’ve been through more than you know, Sakura-chan. But one day, you’ll understand.” The man hits her arm hard enough to send her breath hissing through her teeth, and she retaliates quickly, only to get swatted away. “Focus. You always lose your aim when you lose your temper.” The man chides.

She glares at him but nods, forcing back her anger and trying to focus. “Right.” She acknowledges, taking a deep breath before attacking again.

* * *

 

 

Fighting with Naruto is much different than fighting with the Sage. The Sage is endlessly patient and calm. He’s a gently flowing creek compared to Naruto’s blazing inferno.

“Hiyah!” Naruto screams, kicking out, and even just grazing her, the blow hurts. 

Where the Sage is calm, Naruto is all enthusiasm, uncontained and  _ insane. _ “Naruto wait, watch your-” She cuts off when he stumbles backwards, catching on the root she’d  _ tried _ to warn him of.

Instead of helping, she uses the chance to kick the back of his knees, and he topples like a tower of cards.

“Ooow.” Naruto whines plaintively, laying there for a long, pathetic minute. Sakura watches him before she frowns.

“Again?” She asks, a hint of mischief, and Naruto  _ instantly _ bounces back to his feet.

“Yeah! Let’s go!”

His enthusiastic loudness is annoying as hell sometimes, but usually, Naruto’s pretty okay to spend time with.

She hates eating anywhere with him - his manners are  _ atrocious _ \- and she doesn’t know why they can’t shop together without someone glaring at them, but when it’s just the two of them, and there’s no one there to bother them…

She feels a connection.

Usually, it’s just fond patience.

But sometimes the feeling is so confusingly strong that it scares her.


	4. Chapter 4

Sakura’s seven when she dreams of death, destruction, and loss so powerful it leaves her breathless.

She wakes up to the same thing.

“All of them?” Her mother asks her father, quietly from behind the shoji screen, but not quiet enough. Sakura sits on the floor outside it, listening. 

“Every Uchiha.” Her father confirms softly. “Except one. Sasuke Uchiha. He’s seven - an academy student.”

“Sakura’s classmate?” Her mother whispers, aghast, and Sakura flinches a bit. She curls her knees up, making herself as small as she can.

She knows Sasuke, vaguely. All the girls simper over him, but Naruto hates him, and he’s mean to Naruto in return, so Sakura’s never gotten to know him. But she  _ knows him. _ He’s the best ninja in the class, and she’s the best kunoichi, so they’ve had to fight for the Rookie slot a few times.

To her annoyance, he usually wins.

“The same.” Her father says, interrupting her thoughts. “I don’t think they’re close.”

“I don’t care about that.” Mebuki protests, voice rising before lowering to an even quieter hiss. “Her  _ classmate, _ Kizashi. Imagine if he’d taken his rage out on the Academy instead of his family.”

“That  wasn’t his goal.” Her father protests, pausing for a long minute. “This stays between us, Mebuki. No one can know I told you.”

“...Alright.” Her mother says with some trepidation. Sakura concentrates even harder, ear almost touching the shoji screen. 

“He told Sasuke that he did it to test himself. To test his Sharingan. That’s all we got out of the kid before he collapsed.” 

“Kizashi…” Her mother whispers, voice breaking, and Sakura hears them moving. She hesitates for a moment, waiting until they’re particularly loud, and then quickly scooches to her room as soundlessly as possible.

No one comes in after her, so she assumes she did a good job.

That night, when she dreams, she remembers lightning and feeling abandoned.

She wakes up with a throbbing chest.

 

* * *

 

Sasuke doesn’t show up for days after.

“Good riddance.” Naruto had thoughtlessly said the first day, and Sakura had had to save him from a room full of appalled people to explain what happened. An abashed Naruto had immediately apologized, as horrified as the rest of them.

It takes nearly a week for Sasuke to come back to class, and the kids and teachers try to shower him with good wishes, but he rebuffs them all.

_ Just like usual, _ Sakura thinks, and then pauses because that makes no sense. The Sasuke she knew had always been cheerful. Not sullen and closed off. 

The strange, idle thought leaves her unnerved for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

 

“He’s alone now, mama says.” Sakura tells the Sage as they spar in her mind .

“That’s a sad way to live.”

“I tried to help, but he wants to be alone.”

“No one wants to be alone, Sakura-chan.” The Sage chides gently, tapping her ribs with his staff. She winces a little at the faint sting. “Some people are better at hiding it than others. Some people bury it so deep they really believe it themselves. But no one truly wants to be alone.”

“Can I help him?” Sakura questions, frowning a little in concentration. Sweat tickles her lips, which always feels odd to her, since this is a dream and all. 

“Can you? You tell me, Sakura-chan. I’m not the one who knows him.” The Sage says in an odd tone.

She studies him for a second before jumping over a low sweep of his staff. “No.” Sakura decides after a moment of thought. “I don’t think so. I don’t think he’ll let me.”

“Then you can’t help him. That doesn’t mean you can’t try, however.”

“How can I try?”

“I don’t know.” The Sage murmurs, staff thwacking her calf. “He’s alone now?”

“All alone.” Sakura confirms.

“Offer him food.”

Sakura considers that for a moment before nodding. “Alright.”

* * *

She does her best, but Sasuke either hates food or hates  _ her, _ because the first bento she brings him ends up in the dirt.

She can’t help the way she tears up just a little bit (the food had taken  _ work, _ okay?), and once that started, Naruto was on Sasuke like a bullet. 

She tried to intervene, they argued louder, and eventually, Sakura burst into tears. Naruto finally stopped fighting to calm her down while Sasuke stomped away, stepping in bits of her food as he went, and that made her cry just a little bit harder.

“Asshole.” Naruto proclaims, and Sakura sniffles into his shoulder.

She doesn’t argue.

 

* * *

 

 

Sakura’s eight when she tries again.

Sasuke eats the bento.

Naruto glares at him like he thinks his eyes are lasers and he’s trying to melt the boy.

It’s progress.

Very little progress.

 

* * *

 

  
Sakura’s nine when they move on from chakra theory and start practicing chakra control.

Her very first leaf sticks to her forehead. Sasuke’s does, too.

Naruto ends up with a pile of burnt leaves around him, and he glares at Sasuke like it’s his fault.

It doesn’t help that Sasuke smirks mockingly back at him.

The fist fight, when it happens, surprises no one.

 

* * *

 

“What are you?” Sakura asks the Sage when she’s ten and curiosity is sinking in. The Academy is teaching more in depth now, techniques and taijutsu and everything, and she’s beginning to see a big difference between what they teach and what the Sage does.

“A person, just like you.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Sakura huffs, then frowns. “I mean… the Academy. They teach us how to hurt people. To defend ourselves and retaliate. But you teach me…”

“To incapacitate without killing.” He supplies for her, promptly and without hesitation. She looks at him a bit uneasily and nods.

“Yes.”

“Is that wrong, Sakura-chan?”

“Wrong? No. I don’t think so. But it’s different.” She explains. “A different mindset.” She looks down at her hands, thinking long and hard, and the Sage says nothing to her for several minutes.

“You’ve finally learned of me, haven’t you?” He asks quietly, breaking the silence, and she twitches slightly.

“A little.” Sakura admits, twining her fingers together. “Iruka-sensei taught us about the legend of the Sage of Six Paths. They say you created the Bijū. That you created ninjutsu.”

“...I created no such thing.” The man says after a long minute. She looks up at him through her lashes, nervous in a way she hasn’t been around him in some time. “The Bijū were not created, they were born. I merely paved the way for them. They were my children.”

Unease and a hint of outright horror twist at her stomach. “The Kyūbi, it almost destroyed Konoha ten years ago.”

“Yes.” The man stares at her. “Do you know what a jinchūriki is?”

“Someone who has a Bijū sealed in them.”

“I’m going to tell you something, Sakura. I wonder if I shouldn’t have told you sooner, under better circumstances.” The man hesitates, something she can’t recall him ever doing. “I created the Bijū, yes. But you, my dear, have been best friends with a jinchūriki for years now.”

Her lips part.

Her mouth goes dry, eyes unblinking down at her hands, and Sakura just…

Stops.

For a moment.

 

“Naruto?”

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, when Sakura tries to interact with Sasuke, her chest aches funnily.

Sometimes, when Sakura interacts with Naruto, her skin tingles like she’s feeling her chakra buzzing underneath the flesh. 

“A jinchūriki…” She murmurs, staring up at her ceiling fan.

She’d woken up maybe thirty minutes ago, but hasn’t made any move yet - even though it’s a school day. She’s late by now.

She has no intention of going at all, and her parents are too busy with work to even know, anyways.

“Jinchūriki.” 

The word echoes in her mind and in her room.

_ “Naruto.” _ She whispers incredulously.

The word jinchūriki brought to mind a terrifying, half-man half-Bijū.

To think of Naruto that way would be  _ ridiculous. _

But it also explained a lot of things.

The  _ ridiculous _ amount of energy and chakra the boy has. The hate the people have towards him. Two plus two equals the Kyūbi being what’s sealed in him, and Sakura can understand why that’d make him a pariah. Not that she  _ agrees  _ with it, but she understands it. 

Naruto was as harmless as a fly, really. It was hard to think of him being even a little bit…  _ evil. _

And she wonders if he even  _ knows, _ considering how bad he is at keeping secrets.

“How do you know?” Sakura asks the air. “How do  _ you _ know that Naruto’s one, when even I don’t?”

The Sage doesn’t answer.

She’s awake, after all.

“How do you  _ know?” _ She whispers to herself.

 

* * *

It takes one more class on jinchūriki and the Bijū for Sakura to determine that, no. Naruto has no clue - and most of their classmates don’t, either. Naruto cluelessly declares that he’d be able to control a Bijū if he were a jinchūriki, and there’s a moment of incredibly tense, awkward silence before Iruka-sensei clears his throat and moves on.

It’d be funny if it weren’t so painfully awkward.

“You shouldn’t joke about things like that.” Sakura scolds him after, when they’re dueling one another in Training Ground Two. “People still hate talking about the Bijū. The Kyūbi.” 

Naruto wrinkles his nose, ducking under a swing from her bō. “Didya know I was born on the same day? People hate my birthday.”

“Statistically speaking, there’s at least another couple hundred people in Konoha with the same birthday.” Sakura points out and Naruto huffs. 

“What even are stastistics? Leave it in the classroom.” He whines.

“You don’t  _ listen _ in the classroom.” Sakura reprimands instantly. “And it’s statistics.”

“Whatever. That’s not the  _ point.” _

“What, the point on your head?” Sakura asks innocently, and while he’s still making a weird face at that, she lunges. Her bō sweeps right through his spiky hair and she darts back with a laugh, dodging his flying punches and kicks.

* * *

 

Sakura’s eleven when she dreams of death and destruction.

It’s not the first time, not by far - but it’s the most vivid.

Thousands of inhuman enemies, white and clay and distorted.

A blonde haired woman fighting at her side.

Naruto, a grown teen, lying dead at her knees. 

A silver haired man holding her close.

Sasuke, his eye changed and his hand punched through her chest.

“It looked like yours.” Sakura tells the Sage, looking at his third eye for once. “His eye. Just one.”

“I told you before, Sakura-chan.” The Sage murmurs almost sadly. “Dreams are a glimpse into your inner soul - and your soul is older than it seems.”

“How is that possible?” Sakura demands, hand resting where she  _ knows _ a fist-sized hole is supposed to be. “How can my soul be older than I am?”

“That’s a question you aren’t ready to hear the answer to.”

“But I  _ need _ to know. I’ve been quiet this long,” She implores, “don’t you trust me to keep my silence?”

“I do, Sakura-chan. But this is more important than anything else I’ve ever entrusted you with.”

“So what? So what if it is? I’m eleven. I’m going to graduate soon. I’m going to be a kunoichi.  _ Why? _ Why did you put me on this path if you won’t even be honest with me!” 

“I didn’t choose this path, you did.” He corrects sharply, frowning at her. “But you aren’t wrong. You’re an adult soon, in the eyes of the law. Your maturity is leaps and bounds beyond that of your peers.” He admits. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps it’s time.”

For a long minute, silence is all that follows that admission. Sakura watches him intently, gaze locked, and he looks at the hands resting on his knees, frowning.

“Sakura-chan.” The man murmurs, looking up at her. “Sleep. Dream. And when you’re done, come back to me. We will talk then.” He says quietly.

The white abyss goes grey before she can even blink her eyes, and by the time she does, it’s pitch black.

 

And then she dreams.

 

* * *

 


	5. Chapter 5

She dreams of a life she might’ve lived. A life where her confidence came from an over exuberant blonde girl, not a calmly confident man. A life where her skills were the bare minimum taught at the Academy, where she’d excelled but not been _better._ Not been _unique._

She dreams of a life where she was mean and cruel to Naruto, flirty and desperate to Sasuke, and lost her patience with anyone who stood in her way. She dreams a life where her team comes together and falls apart like precariously placed dominoes.

“I don’t understand.” Sakura wants to cry, clutching her head. It feels too full now, but also feels like she’s missing _so much._ “I don’t understand.” She repeats tearfully. “Why did I live… so differently?”

A life where she’d been happy to fight, to hurt people, to win in matches by pummeling the opponent and coming out on top - when now she does as little harm as possible to win. A life where she’d excelled at throwing kunai and shuriken, when now she barely can stand even handling them.

Her skills remain, but her _reasons,_ her _desires,_ they’re all so different that it _hurts._ She doesn't remember everything, but she still remembers  _so much._

“Sakura-chan.” The Sage murmurs gently, his hand settling on her head. “Calm down. Breathe.” He soothes and she tries to listen, but her first few breaths leave her in sobs. “That was a life that could have been yours - but we changed that. You and I. Do you remember that?”

It takes her a moment to nod. She remembers them being in the same abyss. She remembers telling him she wanted peace, and asking him how to achieve it. She remembers agreeing.

“You’ve grown up so differently, Sakura-chan. And I’m so unbelievably proud of you.”

“They’re brothers.” Sakura recalls suddenly, her voice barely a whisper. “Naruto. Sasuke. They’re brothers. What am I supposed to do? How can I… change them?”

“You already have, Sakura-chan. Remember?”

She walks to and from school every day with Naruto. She makes bento for Sasuke every day. She trains with Naruto every morning and evening.

She’d hated and been hated by them in her past life.

“I have.” She agrees softly, fingers twining painfully together in her lap. The Sage’s hand still rests on her head, fingers gently rubbing, and it’s more soothing than it has any right to be. “I’ve changed things.” Sakura agrees, something in her unwinding at that. “I’ve changed them.”

“You have. Naruto is your best friend. Sasuke… is a difficult soul.”

Translation: He’s an asshole.

“But you still have worked your way into his life, even if only in a small way.” The Sage reminds her and she nods slowly. The hand retracts, falling to his side, and he folds his legs and sits in front of her. “Sakura-chan. Look at me.”

She lifts her damp eyes to meet his.

“Think. Sleep. Dream.” He urges her gently. “Tell your parents you’re sick until this… settles in your mind. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” She echoes, mind whirring. Her parents wouldn’t argue if she claimed to be sick - she’s never faked it before. They wouldn’t even question it. Naruto…

...Naruto will probably break through her window and feed her ramen.

“Rest.” The Sage urges, oblivious to the mental image she’s entertaining.

It takes a moment, and then the white begins to fade to grey again.

She’s pretty sure that’s a sign he’s kicking her out.

She falls asleep before she can be too indignant.

 

* * *

 

Sakura sleeps, Sakura dreams, and Sakura decides she doesn’t like the other Sakura.

The one she might’ve been.

She’s crueler, mean and harmful towards Naruto, then desperate and pathetic when it comes to Sasuke. She’s weak but determined, and it’s only her efforts to excel that Sakura can forgive her for.

She dreams of taking on an S-Class Missing-nin and feels proud of herself.

She dreams of fighting a war and still needing to be rescued by her teammates.

“No.” Sakura decides, two days after she’d started having those dreams. She looks at herself in the mirror -  at the reasonable, bright red shirt she wears, the black leggings and the staff on her back.

She’d been weak and desperate in her past life, and she’d succeeded in areas that blew people away - but Sakura didn’t want to be someone who cowers on the battlefield, waiting for someone to save her.

“I’m going to protect my precious people.” Sakura announces to her bedroom. Her hand touches the bō on her back, feeling the smooth wood and the weighted ends.

She knows how to fight now, better than she ever did in her dreams.

She knows how to fight and _not kill,_ and in her dreams, she even knows how to heal.

Sakura leaves her home, but doesn’t go to the academy.

She goes to the library instead.

 

* * *

 

The jutsu had been ridiculously easy for her to use in her dream life.

It’s just her luck that it stumps her in this one. “What’re you doing?” Naruto asks, peering at the fish she’s failing to use the Mystical Palm Jutsu on.

“Trying to heal it.” Sakura explains, her hands glowing faintly, and then the glow flickers away.

“I don’t get it.” Naruto says, frowning at the scroll the fish sits on.

“It’s the Mystical Palm Jutsu.” Sakura explains distractedly. “It heals injuries, so I’m trying to heal this fish.”

“It’s jibberish.” Naruto complains, shooting the scroll a dirty look before he sits across it from Sakura. She ignores him for as long as she can, but eventually his staring distracts her too much from the jutsu.

“What do you want, Naruto?” Sakura asks curiously, forcing her agitation with the scroll away.

“Ne, can we train? I missed you the last couple days. I’m gonna get out of shape!” He whines and Sakura rolls her eyes, but it’s fondly and not mean like her dream self would have.

“You don’t get out of shape _that quickly.”_ She says, but even as she does, she seals the fish away and rolls up the scroll. She stands up and Naruto bounces to his feet, eagerly waiting as she lifts her fists. “Alright. Ready?”

“Ready!”

 

* * *

  


The next day, when they have taijutsu practice at the Academy, Iruka just sighs and shakes his head when it’s their turn to fight.

 

* * *

 

“You fight differently.” Sasuke says almost accusatory. Sakura blinks at him, startled, and turns in the middle of the street to face him. They’re not far from the Academy, and he’d picked the one rare day Naruto wasn’t with her to confront her.

“I do.” She agrees, blinking at him.

The sight of him makes her chest ache - and her skin itch uncomfortably. She thinks about the Sasuke from her dream life and wonders if this is about to be another change to that failed world.

“Who taught you? We aren’t supposed to have mentors outside of the Academy.”

“Clans train their people all the time.” Sakura protests instantly. She’s seen Hinata slip up a few times and almost fall into the Byakugan fighting style. She’s even seen _Shikamaru_ do it, when he actually cares enough to duel someone. “A friend taught me.” She adds after a moment of Sasuke silently glaring.

“Naruto almost beat me.” He says and she nods. He’d gotten close, but Sasuke was _very_ good at taijutsu.

“You won.” She pointed out.

“But I almost didn’t.”

“So what?”

“He’s weaker than me but he almost won.” Sasuke snaps and Sakura scowls, offended on Naruto’s behalf, but…

“The style’s made for that.” Sakura explains. “For when you’re fighting someone stronger and bigger. It’s made for smaller people like Naruto and I.” Naruto was even shorter than her, and she remembers from her other life that it took until they were fifteen for that to change. Probably all that ramen… “So what? Why do you care so much?”

“I have to be the best.” Sasuke explains, eyes blazing with fervor. “Otherwise I won’t ever be able to kill… him.”

“Him?” Sakura questions, but that just makes him look at her even more fiercely. She flinches away a tiny bit, unnerved. “What does it matter, then? You still beat him.”

“Barely.”

“But-”

“It’s not enough.” Sasuke spits, looking past her and clenching his hands into fists. “It’s not enough.” He repeats.

She glances backwards but there’s nothing behind her for him to be glaring at, unless that street pole had offended him, so she looks back to him in confusion.

Only to find him whipping around to storm away from her.

 _What the hell?_ She wonders.

 

* * *

 

“Itachi Uchiha made a choice that affected the lives of thousands.” The Sage tells her while they practice that night. “Itachi was Sasuke’s beloved brother, but he betrayed him - and the rest of their clan. He was tricked into helping kill the three hundred odd Uchiha that once lived in Konoha.”

“Tricked into helping?” Sakura questions, ducking under his shakujō with a furrowed brow. “All three hundred?”

“And twenty seven, if I recall correctly.” The Sage nods. “It was a grim day in Konoha’s history, to lose a clan so powerful.”

“Powerful? Sasuke is obsessed with being that.”

“Itachi’s doing, I’m sure - and Itachi’s strings being pulled this way and that.” The man catches her bō, sweeping it away and she jerks back to avoid a jab to her face. She staggers a bit but catches herself, bō blocking his next sweeping attack. “Itachi’s mind is not his own. His actions have been caused by so many people it’s difficult to decide who is more at fault.”

“Who owns his mind, then, if not himself?” Sakura questions, sweat trickling down her brow. “You talk like he wasn’t in control of himself.”

“He was in control of himself.” The Sage tells her, “But he was not in control of his circumstances. Layers upon layers, Sakura-chan. There is always something hidden beneath the surface.”

“What’s hidden under Itachi’s massacre?”

“That’s a good question, isn’t it?”

 

* * *

 

That night, Sakura and Naruto spar until nightfall. When they’re done, Naruto collapses onto the ground beside her, arms splaying out like a starfish. Every breath they take is heavy and gasping, but her body tingles with almost joy at their fighting.

“I really like you, Naruto.” Sakura tells him suddenly. “You’re my best friend.”

There’s a moment where Naruto just blinks up at the sky, looking shellshocked, before he turns his head to grin wildly at her. “You’re my best friend too, Sakura-chan!”

She grins brilliantly back.

 

There’s a life she lived where she was cruel to the boy every day. Where she adored a boy who was just as cruel to her. There’s a life where she would have hated getting gross and sweaty, and would never _consider_ passing out in the dirt.

But this isn’t that life, and Sakura’s learned from her mistakes and from her experiences.

There are things much more important than getting dirt in her hair, and this, Sakura reflects as she looks at Naruto’s sleeping face, is definitely one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was internetless for a few days there, but I'm back now! :s


	6. Chapter 6

Sakura’s twelve and her hands twist anxiously around the hem of her red shirt. It’s graduation day and she isn’t nervous for herself - she’s already passed and gotten her hitai-ate, in fact, and it’s tied loosely in her hair. She’s nervous for Naruto.

She’d worked with the boy day and night, but he  _ still _ couldn’t do a proper  _ bushin _ , and she knows it’s too much to hope that he managed to master it when she wasn’t looking. 

She remembers him failing but somehow managing to pass later on, but the details are lost to her, and the Sage had been no help.

_ “Some things will happen no matter what you do,” _ is all he’d said to her.

Naruto interrupts her thoughts, stomping out of the testing room with a forlorn look. He glances at her, at the hitai-ate on her head, and she feels inexplicably guilty before he turns and walks away.

_ Oh, Naruto, _ Sakura thinks sadly, standing up and leaving too.

She just hopes that whatever happened last time happens again.

 

* * *

 

“You worry much.” The Sage says almost warningly. 

“I have a lot to worry about.” Sakura counters, verbally and physically, his shakujō sliding to the side. She whips out and smacks her bō into his ribs, making the man huff out a harsh breath. “I’ve been literally dreaming about these days.” She says, sighing heavily. 

The Sage moves fast, staff sweeping out, and she finds herself landing hard on her back a moment later.

“Ow."

“You’re distracted.” The Sage informs her, frowning down at her. He offers her his hand but she doesn’t take it, instead contemplating the vast white abyss overhead.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to change anything.”

“You must change it one action at a time, Sakura-chan.” The Sage says, voice gentling. “As you would overcome any task, one step is all it takes.”

“Every step I take changes things in unpredictable ways.”

“Then don’t try to predict them. Life would be terribly boring if you know what’s going to happen every day of it.” The Sage muses and Sakura can’t help but roll her eyes.

“That’s terrible advice.”

“Is it? I thought it was rather touching.”

“How am I supposed to stop Sasuke from becoming like he was before? He’s already filled with so much  _ hate.” _

“You’re too late to change his hatred.” The Sage informs her and she tenses at that, a split second from yelling  _ what _ at him - but he continues on. “Now your task is to channel that hatred for him. He forgot the power of teamwork, of fellowship, in your past. But he doesn’t need to forget that now.”

She contemplates that for a moment, tenseness unfurling in her chest. She blinks up at the white space above her, frowning thoughtfully.

In her dreams, after the mission to Waves, Sasuke had become… warmer to them. More open. Almost kind.

The Forest of Death and Orochimaru had been what destroyed that progress.

 

“How the hell am I supposed to stop a Sannin?”

 

* * *

 

It’s the next day, after a long night of struggle, that she finally masters the Mystical Palm Jutsu - two months after she’d started trying. “See, watch.” She shows Naruto, healing away one of the bruises she’d just given him. They’re meeting up in the early morning, as usual, and Naruto inexplicably has a hitai-ate around his forehead.

She doesn’t ask, and he doesn’t offer an explanation beyond that Iruka had given it to him.

“Whoa!” Naruto cries out, eyes wide. “That’s awesome!”

“Yeah.” Sakura agrees, then looks over at him and grins. “I’m glad you graduated, too.”

“Me, too!” Naruto stretches on the balls of his feet, arms overhead, and Sakura looks down at her hands for a moment. “Ne, I hope we get put on the same team.”

“Me, too.” Sakura echoes his earlier words, looking up and matching his beaming smile.

 

* * *

 

They get teamed together.

Of course they do - but it’s still a relief when their names are called out together. “Sakura Haruno, Naruto Uzumaki,” Naruto looks at her with an excited smile, “and Sasuke Uchiha.” The smile dies.

“Damn it! I have to be stuck on a team with  _ you?” _ Naruto complains, looking to the side. Sasuke, silently sitting next to him, ignores the blond. “Hey! Hey! I’m talking to you!”

“Naruto!” Iruka cuts him off reprimandingly and Naruto flinches a tiny bit before looking over. “These teams are carefully balanced to make them work the best. You’re teamed with the two top graded members of the class, to compensate for you coming  _ dead last.” _

“Dead last?!” Naruto cries out, and to Sakura’s frustration, some people laugh at him. She turns to shoot them heated glares, shutting them right up, before grabbing Naruto’s arm.

“Who cares?” She gently tugs at the material of his hideous jumpsuit. “We’re in a team together, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” Naruto settles down, grinning at her. “Sucks that  _ he _ has to come, but yeah. We get to be partners!” He says triumphantly and Sakura smiles back at him. She looks around him to Sasuke, who still hasn’t said anything, and peers at him for a moment.

If nothing else, he doesn’t look  _ annoyed _ by the team placement. Though he is leaning away from Naruto a bit… but that could be forgiven. The blonde  _ is _ awfully loud. 

Some things just never change.

 

* * *

 

“You’re teammates now.” The Sage tells her that night. “That means something.”

“I know.” Sakura assures him quietly. They aren’t dueling, for once, but just sitting there instead. Her knees are drawn to her chest, arms looped loosely around them. He sits as he always does, legs folded and hovering off the ‘ground’. “It means we’re in it together. That we need to protect and help each other.”

“It also means you’re a genin now. Or you will be, come tomorrow.” She nods, remembering the bell test from her memories. “You will need one another.” He pauses for a long minute, eyes closing and expression troubled. Sakura silently waits until he opens them again. “I once gave my chakra to my sons. They used it to stop the end of the world - and then turned it on each other.” He says quietly and she tenses, vaguely remembering this from her dreams. “I made a mistake that day, when I gave it so freely. I overlooked something that hadn’t existed in their other lifetimes. A teammate.” He murmurs, staring intently at her.

“One person who stood between them, who could be the bridge between the two. I overlooked a girl with the potential to be great, and left her lying in the ruins of my sons’ wake.” Sakura flinches slightly. “I vowed not to make that mistake again, Sakura.” He says severely, one hand extending towards her. “I’ve taught you much more than I’ve been able to teach anyone since my sons. I’ve taught you and you’ve learned. Now it’s time that I give you a gift to combat theirs.”

“A gift?” Sakura echoes, watching his hand hover between them. 

“A gift. My chakra, I will save for my sons, but my lifeforce… I will give it to you. And with it, you will be  _ great.” _

“Great?” Sakura repeats, frowning softly. “I don’t want to be great. I just want to be able to protect them.”

“And that will make you great, Sakura.” He murmurs. “Your love. Your tenacity. Your skill. It will all matter before your days are done. This is only a factor - the rest of it is you, my dear.” He pauses for a moment to smile at her. “I would have given this to you sooner, but your own life force needed time to… blossom, shall we say, before mine would interfere.”

“Won’t this hurt you?” Sakura asks, fingers twitching anxiously. 

“Perhaps a little.” The man muses, frowning softly. “I won’t give you all of it. You still need guidance, and I will be here to give you that,” She relaxes a little at that, “but I will give you plenty. You’ll feel the difference soon enough. How you’ll explain it away…” The man trails off, leaving her a little confused. “Well. That’ll be up to you.”

That certainly wasn’t ominous at all.

“Are you prepared?”

“No.” Sakura admits instantly, frowning. “I don’t understand. What will this do to me?”

“Lifeforce is a powerful thing, Sakura. Very powerful - and not easily wielded. But when one is blessed with an overabundance of it… well. You can do miraculous things.” The man smiles at her, hand still presented to her. She hesitates, skeptical and even a little suspicious, before she reaches out. Her hand wraps around his, warm and  _ alive, _ and something hot rushes through her.

It hits her like a tsunami, making her reel back in shock, and she staggers. 

The hand on hers forces her to stay upright, even when she tries to fall, and the grip becomes almost painful. “You will be great, Sakura. But don’t forget your roots.”

There was a hint of a joke there, but before she can try to understand it, the world goes black around her.

It’s almost a relief to finally fall unconscious, lost to the tide rushing through her.

 

* * *

 

Sakura’s hands are fisting her sheets so hard her knuckles ache when she wakes up. Her head throbs a little, like she’d used up too much chakra the night before.

Or like she  _ has _ too much chakra. 

“Ow.” She murmurs plaintively, sitting up and rubbing at her temples. She frowns softly, pulling her hand back and staring at it. She feels tingly, like she always does when Naruto’s around, but he isn’t-

A rock hits her window.

Sakura blinks and looks over, glancing at the window and then at the clock, which reads-

“Seven already?!” She squeaks, throwing the sheets off and grabbing her clothes. She rushes to the window, shoving it open and sticking her head out. 

“Sakura-chaaaaan!” Naruto calls urgently to her and she offers him a quick wave.

“I’ll be down in just a second!” She shouts back, slamming the windows shut and swapping out her pajamas for her usual shirt and shorts. 

 

At least she knows Kakashi won’t even notice them being late…

  
  


 


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

 

 

 

It’s in the middle of the Bell Test, while she and Naruto are relentlessly attacking Kakashi and getting nowhere, that she begins to feel a change.

She’s not tiring like she usually would. The bruises Kakashi inflicts on her don’t hurt half as much as they should. The very air itself seems  _ brighter _ to her, the world more alive, and it makes her feel almost  _ cheerful _ when she should be exhausting herself.

In spite of her and Naruto’s best efforts - with Sasuke cutting in when convenient - they fail the initial test, just like in her dreams. “Sasuke, you were so focused on winning on your own that you disregarded your own teammates, even as they were fighting me. Naruto, Sakura, you fought me together - but elected to ignore Sasuke when you could have used his help.” Kakashi explains, which is true enough.

Sakura blushes a little, embarrassed, and Sasuke is the one tied to the post this time. Sakura offers him her meal without hesitation, and Naruto does as well after a bit of complaining, and then Kakashi returns.

“You pass.” He tells them with a smile under his mask, and Sakura beams at him.

 

* * *

 

There’s six months between their graduation and the Wave mission. Six months of D-rank missions.

Sakura spends most of that time plotting.

And training, of course.

* * *

 

“There are many tools from your past life that you bring with you now.” The Sage warns her as they spar in her dreams. 

She ducks under a kick, grabbing at the ankle, and  _ almost _ manages to wrench the man down. His shakujō gets in the way, almost smacking her face, but she manages to weave around it and spring backwards. “What do you mean?” Sakura asks in the small pause before she lunges again, this time starting with her bō staff. It meets the shakujō with a loud thunk of wood on metal, parried for a moment before she sweeps to the side.

“Jutsu you used to know. Jutsu you used to use daily. You cannot use them now.”

Sakura pauses, brow furrowing, and almost gets smacked in the face. “Why not?” She asks as she puts some distance between them.

“You should not yet know them. And some, well… you will see.” 

_ Ominous, _ Sakura can’t help but think, wryly ducking under a kick and smacking his hip with her bō. He stumbles slightly and she lashes out, bō moving at light speed, and she hits him three times in rapid succession. He goes down to one knee, holding out a hand, and Sakura instantly withdraws, pulling her staff back and taking a step away. “Are you alright?”

“Fine, fine.” The Sage assures her quietly, straightening up. “You’re improving every day. Your practice with Naruto has done wonders for your improvisation.”

She smiles brightly, lowering her bō staff to her side, and he smiles softly back at her. 

“I would fear to face you in true battle, my dear, and you aren’t even wielding a blade.”

Sakura can’t help but blush a bit at that praise, her smile stretching. “Thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome, Sakura.”

Sakura hesitates for a moment, then plants her bō against the ‘ground’ and leans on it. “You’ve stopped calling me Sakura-chan.” She notes and he frowns a bit, peering at her.

“That’s because you are no longer a child, my dear. You are a grown woman in mind, now.”

“Legally speaking as well.” Sakura admits and he nods. 

“Yes. Legally as well.” He pauses, sighing softly. “All my children always outgrow me. You may not be my child, but you’re not very different from them. Particularly now.” There’s a heaviness to his words that leaves her feeling unsettled instead of touched, and she bites her lip, peering at the Sage.

“Because of your lifeforce?”

“Mmm… In part. And because of a choice that you made, so many years ago.” He smiles softly at her, a sad tinge to it. “The moment you made that choice, you rose higher than anyone in my eyes. Rarely have I been so proud, and never has it been left untinged by disappointment and sorrow. Even my own sons, in the end, turned on each other. You have turned on no one.”

“And I won’t.” Sakura says firmly, utterly confident in that, and the Sage nods slowly.

“I believe you, Sakura. Truly, I do.” He pauses for a moment, resting against his shakujō and looking past her, at the nothingness around them.

When he speaks, it’s almost to himself.

“I pray it lasts.”

 

* * *

 

“I wonder, sometimes, if we’re not insane.” Sakura says to Naruto, tugging at the grass between them. They’re resting for the moment, waiting as usual for whenever Kakashi decides to show up. “I mean, look at us.”

“What about us?” Naruto demands, huffing on his breaths. They’d fought longer and harder than ever before, and somehow, she’d been able to keep up with him for once. He doesn’t seem to even notice, sweatshirt hanging open and revealing the mesh armor underneath. 

She’d outright forgone her shirt, wearing a mesh armor tank top and her usual mid-thigh length shorts. There are tiny mounds where her breasts will soon be, but the armor pushes them down, making them almost nonexistent. 

In another life, she would’ve cared a lot about that.

In this one, all she cares about is keeping her precious people safe. 

“We’ve just spent almost two hours sparring.” Sakura tells him, panting. “Two hours!”

“So what? It was fun.” Naruto stretches, recovering his breath faster than her, and she aches with jealousy for a moment. 

“We need to start training with Sasuke, too.”

“What?” Naruto freezes, looking horrified. “No, no, he’s gross. No, Sakura-chan, don’t make me.”

“We have to.” Sakura urges. “He’s our teammate. With how strong the two of us are together,” they’d actually almost gotten the bells from Kakashi, “imagine how strong  _ three _ of us will be.”

“Four of us, you mean.” Kakashi corrects from  _ right behind her. _ With a half-shriek, Sakura jumps to her feet and into Naruto’s arms, her eyes wide. Naruto’s hands stabilize her, even as they shake with laughter. Kakashi looks at them with a deadpan expression. “Your team leader matters, too.”

Sakura takes a breath, exhales it slowly, then takes another. “You’re late!” She accuses fiercely. 

“So’s our angsty little third member.” Kakashi notes absently, making a show of looking around and coming up empty. 

“Yeah, cause he knew you’d take forever.” Naruto complains, taking his hands off her biceps and stepping to the side. He idly puts his hands behind his head, stretching, and Sakura folds her arms across her chest to stare defiantly at Kakashi. 

“Don’t try to make fun of him.”

“Was I doing that?” Kakashi asks innocently. “My mistake, I didn’t mean to.”

“Bullshit!” Sakura accuses, scowling at him. “Be nicer to him! He deserves it!”

“Does he?” Kakashi glances past her and she turns to see Sasuke meandering towards them, hands in his pockets and a mildly irritated expression firmly plastered on his face.

“You’re not as late as I thought you’d be.” Sasuke says by way of hello, ignoring her and Naruto.

Sakura sighs heavily. “Why do I even try?” She complains, looking at Naruto for assistance - only to find him glaring daggers at Sasuke.

For, as far as she can tell, the crime of merely existing. 

“I hate this job.” Sakura whines.

 

* * *

 

The Wave Mission comes on an early, innocent, unassuming morning. “I hate him.” Naruto hisses immediately, glaring at Tazuna’s back. They haven’t even left the gates yet and the old man has already offended the entire team. Only Kakashi seems unfazed, with Sasuke looking even more sullen than usual. She’s sure they make a humorous sight as they trudge out the gates and into the forests of the Land of Fire.

“Don’t say that.” Sakura scolds Naruto quietly. “He’s our client. We have to pretend to like them.”

“Yeah.” Naruto surprisingly agrees, then harshly mutters,  _ “pretend to.” _

Sakura sighs, adjusting the strap that keeps her bō staff in place on her back. The thing is big enough that it almost brushes against the dirt and reaches diagonally just past her head, but it’s not very heavy. Weighted at both ends but otherwise light and sturdy.

It’s her backpack that’s heavy, but she bears it easily enough, carting her supplies without complaint.

The trip to the Land of Waves is almost uneventful, except a brief episode with some Kiri shinobi. Sasuke and Naruto tackle the two shinobi with laughable ease, considering they’re Chūnin, while Sakura protects Tazuna’s back. Kakashi pretends to be dead, comes back when it’s all already over, and praises them for their good work.

Then he interrogates Tazuna into confessing that he’d lied about the mission. “We couldn’t afford a B-Rank or A-Rank mission.” He says apologetically.

Then he guilts them into continuing the mission. “My daughter and beloved grandson will miss me so much,” He bemoans, until Kakashi sighs loudly and concedes.

“Fine. We’ll take on your mission.” Kakashi agrees. “Besides, it’ll be a good chance to train my little genin.”

It sounded good, until the real fighting began.

Zabuza, Demon of Kirigakure, appeared in a flitter of attacks. Killing intent pressed down on Sakura at all sides, but she braced herself, keeping her bō at the ready and refusing to give in. Sweat rolled down her neck, but she held strong, even as Kakashi was captured by the missing-nin.

“I have an idea,” Naruto says, and the usually dangerous words are actually great.

He throws a fuma shuriken, Sasuke appearing behind Zabuza in it’s place, and Sakura and Naruto lunge from the front sides. They pin him down in a triangle of taijutsu, forcing him to free Kakashi - at which point Sakura recedes back to Tazuna’s side, holding her bō staff up warily.

Kakashi fights Zabuza until a Hunter-nin appears, piercing the man’s neck with a needle and dragging his corpse away from them all. 

Which is, of course, the moment Kakashi collapses. “Chakra exhaustion.” Sakura determines immediately, helping Naruto haul the man up. “Make some clones, Naruto, so we can protect Tazuna-san.”

“Yes ma’am.” Naruto salutes with his free hand, then makes three clones to carry Kakashi awkwardly between them.

The rest of the way to Tazuna’s house is spent in wary peace.

* * *

 

 

“There’s something wrong.” Sakura deduces once they’re in the house. She waits until Team Seven is left in their own room, the door closed and the house quiet, and hovers anxiously over Kakashi.

“What do you mean?” Sasuke questions with a frown and Sakura sends him a fleeting, uneasy glance.

“The hunter-nin. They don’t take bodies. They take heads, and only heads. Or they outright destroy the bodies. It’s how every ninja village handles their missing-nin.” Sakura explains, biting her lip. “We need to be careful. I don’t think we can trust that that hunter-nin was a real one. We should keep watch on the house.”

“I’ll send some clones out.” Naruto says and Sakura nods. 

“Then you take tonight, Naruto. Sasuke and I will stand watch tomorrow night, and we’ll rotate that until Kakashi-sensei’s okay again.”

“Solid planning, Sakura-chan.” Kakashi mumbles from the tatami mat. She immediately kneels down, looking him over worriedly. He opens his normal eye and smiles at her. “Don’t look so worried. I’ll be fine in a week or so.”

“A  _ week?” _ Naruto demands.

They all ignore him.

“I’ll find some way to get you guys some training in the meantime. We can’t have you facing down an S-Rank shinobi like this.”

“We’re  _ Genin, _ sensei.” Sakura points out.

“And by the time I’m done with you, you’ll be Chūnin.” Kakashi promises with a smile that makes his eyes crease. “Just wait. Sakura-chan, teach the boys some chakra control techniques.”

Sakura wrinkles her nose at that, immediately seeing the danger in that. Sasuke would struggle, which would make him angry with her, which would make his control worse. Naruto would outright fail, which would trigger his never-ending need to one-up Sasuke, and the two of them would fight to be-

...Actually.

Sakura blinks, then narrows her eyes suspiciously at her innocent-faced sensei. 

It was  _ genius. _

She smiles as sweetly as she can at the man, knowing she’ll get revenge on him for this headache later. “Yes, sensei.” She says warmly.

A bead of sweat runs down his forehead. 

She smiles wider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK, BABY!
> 
> Hope you liked it. Love you guys! ♥


	8. Chapter 8

The Wave Mission progresses as expected.

Sakura teaches them chakra control practices, Kakashi slowly recovers, and once he’s on his feet, he starts teaching them tree climbing and water walking.

Both of which Sakura knows already, so she devotes her time to teaching Naruto (happily) and Sasuke (reluctantly) how to do the same. 

Kakashi observes, praises Sakura, and does whatever crippled perverts do when they’re bored. Sakura tries not to think about it.

After three days, both of them have tree walking down, and then it’s a fight to teach them water walking. Sasuke does a better job than Naruto, who takes it as a personal insult, and Sakura spends most of her time critiquing Naruto and barely has time to help Sasuke. 

A week passes, and then hell descends on them.

Kakashi sends her with Tazuna to the bridge, which comes under attack while it’s still just her and him there. Kakashi is immediately on the attack, going for Zabuza’s throat, and Sakura hangs back to protect Tazuna.

At least until needles fly her way. 

She whips out her bō staff, three needles embedding into it instead of her throat, and Sakura twists into a spinning kick at the ‘hunter-nin’s face. 

The mask goes flying, the shinobi leaning back just enough to save his face. He or she is beautiful, Sakura realizes in an instant.

So beautiful that she misses the kick for her stomach. She flies backwards, smashing into the edge of the bridge, and she gasps out a harsh, ragged breath. “Tazuna, run!” She shouts, leaping back to her feet and lunging. Needles meet bō, and the weighted end buries into the shinobi’s throat. The shinobi staggers and Sakura sweeps a kick at their ankles, only to find needles burying into her hip.  _ Shit, _ she thinks as her limb goes numb, not quite limp but close enough to slow her down.

The ninja moves to spit another senbon at her and she swings the staff at the ninja’s head, forcing him to twist around it. The senbon goes wide, burying into her bicep instead of her neck, and she flips into a twisting kick at the shinobi’s neck.

Her foot lands home, but the needle goes straight through it.

She can’t quite hold back her scream, and the nin can’t hold back his choked gasp as he clutches at his throat. Sakura rips the needle from the bed of her foot, tears prickling at her eyes as she does. 

The wound seals over before she can cry much, healed by a simple touch of chakra. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Sakura warns the missing-nin, who hovers hesitantly a few feet away.

“I don’t want to hurt you, either.” The shinobi admits. “But I have no more a choice in this than you do. You fight for your sensei, and I fight for my master.”

“Master?” Sakura echoes uneasily at the devoted tone.

“Zabuza-sama requires my assistance. I will give it.” He says quietly, senbon flicking between his fingers. Sakura stabs her bō into the ground and swings around it, the senbon flying past. Some bury into her arm, some scrape by, but she’s still able to lunge at the shinobi with a fury. Her staff swings at light speed, slamming into ribs and then his hip and then his shoulder, but senbon flick into her flesh like a knife through butter. 

Sakura crumbles before the shinobi does, panting for breath and bleeding from the senbon, but the other shinobi is panting heavily as well. “You’re very skilled.” He admits to her. “More so than I expected. But you aren’t-”

“UZUMAKI NARUTO BARRAGE!” 

Sakura blinks, and suddenly the battlefield is flooded by Narutos. They immediately begin to disappear in plumes, but one grabs her shoulder and squeezes it tightly. “Sakura are you alright?” 

“I’m fine. Let’s fight.”

“Help Kakashi-sensei. I can smell his blood. Sasuke and I got this.” Naruto says and Sakura nods, not questioning his suddenly impressive sense of smell. 

Sakura takes a moment to breathe, to pull the senbon from her body, and to make sure that Sasuke and Naruto are fighting together before she stands up.

She hoists her bō up and takes a breath.

She breathes out, and Sakura dives into the fray.

* * *

 

 

The fight with Zabuza is on another level. If it weren’t for her healing abilities, Sakura would have no business in such a fight - but she can heal, and she does heal, and that helps Kakashi win.

It also means she’s there when Kakashi goes for a killing blow, and the other ninja comes flying in to take it.

Sakura grabs him, wrenching him away, and he screams. 

“ZABUZA-SAMA!” He screeches, desperate and broken and pleading, as Zabuza’s body hangs from Kakashi’s bloodied hand. 

“He’s dead.” Sakura tells him firmly. “Do you want to die too?”

“Yes!” He half-sobs, watching with wide, horrified eyes as Zabuka hangs limply in the air. Kakashi gently lowers the body down, looking almost regretful.

Sakura feels sick.

“Kill me!” The shinobi screams. “Kill me too!”

_ Haku, _ a voice whispers in her mind. It sounds like the Sage.

Kakas hi glances over at him, expression oddly sad, before a voice clears his throat.

“Pathetic.” Someone spits and Sakura turns to see a small mob standing on the other side of the bridge from them. Naruto and Sasuke are nowhere to be seen, and that makes Sakura nervous. “To think I hired such a disappointing missing-nin. To think he had such a high reputation.” He scoffs. “And his pathetic apprentice too.” The short, stout make glares at Haku through his eyeglasses.

“Who are you?”

“Me?” The man scoffs. “I’m the one that owns this town.”

“Oh really?” Kakashi asks idly.

A flick of his fingers, and suddenly there’s twenty Kakashi’s facing the mob. 

“I’d rethink whatever decision you’ve made, Mr. Town Owner.” Kakashi says pleasantly.

Sakura would smile at the man’s tone, but Haku is sobbing into her arm, helplessly hanging onto her. She kneels down, ignoring the masses, and Haku kneels with her, eyes fixed on Zabuza’s limp body. “Stop looking.” She whispers to him, but it goes unheard. “You’re Haku, aren’t you?” No response. “My name is Sakura.” She says quietly, while Tazuna’s grandson shows up with a mob of his own, reinforcing Kakashi’s illusions. “Come on, Haku. Let’s get you away from here.”

The boy doesn’t respond, silently moving to Sakura’s ministrations.

Sasuke and Naruto, when she finds them, join them in their quiet trip back to Tazuna’s house.   
  


The next day, they find Haku at Zabuza’s grave, body curled up and still in the frigid air.

 

* * *

 

The Wave Mission changes them.

As individuals and as a team, it changes them.

“Haku was good.” Naruto laments quietly to her, as they sit in Ichiraku. She’s curled into his side, offering as much comfort as she physically can, while Sasuke sits across from them and quietly hums. “He didn’t deserve that.”

“He chose it.” Sasuke grunts.

“He didn’t deserve it.” Naruto snaps back and Sasuke looks at him, eyes shadowed. Sakura holds Naruto tighter.

“He killed himself, Naruto. Accept it. People do that. He’s not the first, and he’s not the last.”

“He should’ve lived. He could’ve.”

“He couldn’t have.” Sakura says quietly. “He lost everything he had, Naruto.”

“He could have tried.” Naruto says firmly, looking at his ramen and blinking eyes that shine too bright. “He could have  _ tried.” _

“I’m sorry, Naruto.” Sakura murmurs.

It feels woefully lacking.

Naruto stares down at his ramen, half eaten, and Sakura bites her lip.

She can’t stop feeling helpless.

* * *

 

 

“I’ve signed you up for the Chūnin Exams.” Kakashi tells them brightly, not three weeks later. 

“What.” Sasuke demands.

“Woo!” Naruto exclaims.

“Oh no.” Sakura whispers, wringing her hands. She knows this. She knows what’s happening and what’s to come, and it fills her with dread.

Things have changed, but time is set on course, and Sakura doesn’t want it to follow the events of her dreams.

But the words are already out there. The applications handed out, and Sakura takes hers with shaking fingers.

There’s no going back, but she’s terrified of going forward.

 

_ How do I stop a Sannin? _

 

_ How do I save Sasuke? _

 

* * *

 

“Do you think Haku was a chūnin?” Naruto asks her as they spar, wood smacking against flesh.

“Probably.” Sakura muses as she ducks under a flying kick. “Why the obsession, Naruto?” She asks in some concern.

“He shouldn’t have died.”   
  
“Lots of people shouldn’t have died, but they have.” Sakura says quietly. Naruto pulls back and Sakura lowers her staff, watching as his shoulders sink in on him. “Naruto…” She says softly, pained.

She wants to help him, but she has no idea how.

“I met him in the forest, didya know that?” Naruto asks the ground and Sakura bites her lip. “I thought he was a girl at first. He was nice. He was getting medicine to treat someone he cared about. Zabuza, I know now, but… still. Someone he cared about.”

“That was kind.” Sakura says a little helplessly. She hates seeing Naruto so downtrodden, but isn’t sure how to help. “Naruto… tell me how to help you.”

“You can’t. Haku’s dead, and we killed him.”

“We didn’t kill him. He killed himself.” 

“We killed Zabuza. We took away the only person he cared about.” 

“Naruto…” Sakura trails off uneasily. He looks up, eyes determined instead of red-rimmed like she’d expect, and looks at her fiercely. 

“Can we make a promise, Sakura?”

“Of course we can.”

“Promise me you’ll never do that if you lose me. I promise I’ll never do that if I lose you.”

Sakura blinks at him, taking in the sheer  _ determination _ that practically emits from him, and takes his hand in hers. She laces her fingers through his, squeezing tightly. “I swear it, Naruto.”

“Good. I swear it, too.” 

And that was that.

 

* * *

 

The Chūnin Exams come faster than Sakura can prepare. 

_ Much _ faster, considering she’s trying to prepare to face down as Sannin and an invasion. 

She writes out what she knows and writes out ideas, and gnaws her way through three pencils before she decides it’s a lost cause.

She can’t stop Orochimaru.

Of  _ course _ she can’t.

She’s barely chūnin level, if even, and Orochimaru is one of the strongest people alive. 

“We’re screwed.” She whines to the Sage when she dreams the night before the Exams.

“I wouldn’t say that.” The Sage says thoughtfully. “You don’t necessarily have to stop him at the source do you?”

Sakura blinks. “I don’t?”

“The Curse Seal corrupts Sasuke, yes, but he tries to resist in the beginning. You told me that, did you not?”

“I mean… yes, he does. I think.” Sakura says, a bit uncertain. “At first. He has Kakashi seal it away?” She offers, not quite sure. 

“Then you have your chance to stop it even if you can’t  _ prevent _ it from happening to begin with.”

“So stop it after it’s been applied?” Sakura translates and the man nods at her. 

“He attempts to fight it. Help him.”

_ “How?” _ Sakura asks, a bit exasperated. “How am I supposed to do that? I can’t seal it away. I can’t stop him from-...” She trails off, blinking, and tilts her head a bit to the side. “I can stop him from thinking we’re holding him back.”

The Sage smiles, a hint of fondness and pride to it. “Sakura, you already have.”

She looks at him and thinks back on how she’d fought Zabuza and Haku. How she’d fought and fought in spite of wounds and the pain. How Sasuke had fallen to Haku, but she and Naruto had picked him back up. 

She thinks about it, and then she smiles. 

“You might be right.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the flu and it's awful~  
> I hope you guys are healthy and not bedridden like me. Bleh. ♥


	9. Chapter 9

The beginning of the Chūnin Exams goes the same as it had in her dreams. She silently guides the two boys away from the genjutsu’d door, leading them up stairs and to the right room. Sasuke nods at her in appreciation when she’s done, while Naruto loudly and boisterously thanks her. 

Kabuto shows them flashcards of people’s information, Sakura surprised to find her own holding a slightly embellished implication on her work during the Wave mission. She hides her disdain for the Orochimaru spy, pretends to be intrigued, and hides her relief when it’s time for the actual test.

The test that she aces, of course.

And then comes the real trial.

 

* * *

The Forest of Death unleashes a level of anxiety hell on Sakura that she hadn’t known possible. Every noise, every movement, everything puts her on the edge. Her jumpiness and unease seems to amuse Sasuke, but Naruto looks a little concerned as they go further and further into the forest.

In the end, all the readiness in the world means nothing.

She lasts thirty seconds again Orochimaru, unleashing a brutal barrage of hits from her staff and dodging as quickly as she can.

In the end, she still finds herself getting flung away, her bō flying out of her hands, and she collides so hard with a tree that her vision goes black. 

The world spins and she falls, no one there to catch her. When she hits the ground, her own elbow cracks her bottom two ribs, and for several minutes, she can only lay there.

_ Fuck, _ she thinks succinctly, staring into the underbrush she’s landed in.  _ Get up, _ she tells herself, grasping at the branches and trying to find a handhold. She manages to, hoisting herself up to her unsteady feet, and that’s when Sasuke starts screaming. 

_ No,  _ Sakura wants to cry, because she knows what that means.

The Curse Seal is in place, and Sakura’s on her own. 

Naruto dangles precariously above her, and she forces herself to leave him to go to her screaming, wailing teammate. The pain in his voice makes her body ache fiercer in sympathy.

When she reaches him, Orochimaru’s nowhere to be found, and Sasuke takes a harsh, gasping breath and collapses into her arms.

_ No, damn it, _ she thinks, looking at the angry, black tattoo on his neck-shoulder.

_ Damn it all. _

It takes her fifteen minutes to move him and Naruto to a safe location, and then another five to find her bō staff lying in the dirt, twenty meters from where she’d landed. There’s a thick gouge in the wood, it’s sturdiness compromised, and Sakura bites her lip uneasily.

Her bō staff is practically her only weapon. She has a tanto across her lower back, but she barely knows how to use it.

Still…

She’s all that’s left of her team, and she needs to do what she can to keep them safe. She’d almost managed it one time, she can definitely manage it now.

Or so she hopes.

The Sound Nin show up the next morning, after a long night of sleepless watch.

She takes out the woman in a matter of seconds, smashing the weighted metal end of her bō into the girl’s head. She ignores the way the skull craters under her blow, stomach curling, and turns to face the other two.

The girl had been easy to take out. She’d been standing away from the other two, and they hadn’t expected Sakura to fight back so suddenly. 

The other two are much more vigilant.

By the time Neji and Lee arrive, Sakura’s brutally beaten one of them, and been brutally beaten by them both. The sound currents blow out her eardrums, leaving her unsteady, but she fights with a vengeance. 

By the time Neji and Lee arrive, Sakura’s taken out two of the Sound team, and the third is thoroughly avenging them.

She slumps to the ground, a beaten woman, while Lee takes out the final member and Neji watches. “Your chakra is strange.” Neji tells her as Lee fights, making no move to help his teammate. Of course, Lee doesn’t seem to  _ need _ help. 

“Strange?” Sakura questions, healing her eardrums so the world will stop spinning circles around her. 

“It moves slowly. It’s not supposed to do that.” Neji’s tone demands answers, but Sakura has none to give.

“I don’t know what that means.” Is all she can offer, pulling a kunai out of her elbow and healing the damage. Lee takes a hit from the Sound nin, his ears bleeding, but before Sakura can blink, Sasuke is across the field and smashing into the shinobi with all the fury of the curse seal.

“His chakra is even stranger.” Neji murmurs in a tone that  _ might _ be uneasy, but it’s rather hard to tell. Sakura watches as Sasuke wails on the Sound nin, no doubt making him wish he’d never even stepped into the little lair Sakura had built to shield her teammates.

The man surrenders barely a moment later, sending a scroll their way, and collects his fallen teammates and flees.

“Job well done.” Sakura decides, moving to Lee and quickly healing his eardrums.

She almost regrets it when he starts lamenting his love for her.

Almost.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Sakura does when they reach the tower is go to sleep. There’s still three days left in the Forest of Death part of the Exams, so she uses that time to rest without guilt.

“My staff is breaking.” Sakura tells the Sage, who frowns. “Orochimaru did some damage to it. And to me.” She admits, rubbing at her side. She can’t  _ heal _ bone damage, but she can accelerate the healing time. They’d still be broken for some time, but they’d heal in time for the final tournaments. 

It’s the preliminaries she’s worried about.

“Yo u still have your taijutsu. Don’t forget that.”

“True.” Sakura mourns for her staff, though, which sits in her lap. There’s a deep gouge down the length of it, and she bites her lip as she runs her hand over the jagged gap. “There’s so much going on, now.” She says quietly. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Do what you’ve always done, Sakura.” The Sage tells her gently. “Fight. Win. Come here to me and learn. I will train you during the time between the preliminaries and finals.”

“You will?” Sakura asks in surprise, getting a small nod from the man. “What will you teach me?”

“Oh, you’ll find out soon, I imagine.” He muses.

Sakura looks at him a bit suspiciously, but the man offers her no other information. “Shall we practice, then?” She asks, hoisting her bō staff. 

“Yes. Let’s begin.” The Sage agrees, readying his shakujō.

And so they spar.

 

* * *

 

The preliminaries go by quickly.

Sakura finds herself fighting Ino, and it’s almost embarrassingly easy to defeat her. The girl has skill, but only in mind jutsu, and taijutsu and her bō staff take her down easily enough. Ino hisses at her in anger when she’s declared the winner, and Sakura looks at her apologetically.

In another life, they were like sisters - but Sakura had been a cruel, vapid little girl, and she isn’t one now. She’s nothing close.

So she wins her fight, Naruto wins his, and Sasuke wins his.

Team Seven triumphs, and they all move on to the next round. Sakura finds herself placed against the Sound nin that had survived the preliminaries, Naruto against Neji, and Sasuke against the frankly creepy Gaara.

“He’s one of them as well.” The Sage tells her in her dreams that night. “But the Ichibi is cruel to him. He torments the child, twists him into what he is now. I grieve for them both.”

“Both?”

“The Bijū are like children to me, Sakura. I’ve told you this before.”

“Yes, but… for Gaara to be as bad as he is…”

“I know.” The Sage says quietly and sadly. “I wish I could speak to them. To remind them of my teachings. But I’m limited, Sakura. You’re the only one I can communicate with.”

“Why is that?” Sakura demands suddenly. “Why me? Why  _ only _ me?”

“Because you agreed to this, Sakura.”

“Yes. In a future that hasn’t happened. How does this… how does  _ any of this _ work?” Sakura questions, shaking her head. “It doesn’t make sense to me. None of it does.”

“Good. It shouldn’t.” 

“That isn’t helpful.”

“Sakura.” The Sage sighs, crossing his legs and floating over the ‘ground’. It’s his lecturing pose, Sakura knows by now, so she stabs her staff into the ‘ground’ and leans on it, ready to listen. “You’ve seen your memories. You know what you’re here to stop.”

“I’ve seen  _ some _ memories.” She argues.

“You’ve seen all you need to. Any more would be too much. You cannot live two lives, Sakura - but you can live the same life twice.”

“I don’t understand. How can I change things when I only have half the knowledge I need?”

“You don’t.” The Sage corrects immediately. “You have all the knowledge you need - and you have all the power you need.” He pauses for a moment, clearly thinking, and Sakura waits. “Sakura.” He says quietly. “Go back. Wake up. Practice your ninjutsu, then come back here and we’ll speak.”

“My ninjutsu?” She echoes in confusion. Ninjutsu wasn’t something she ever practiced beyond the basic jutsus. She was more taijutsu than anything. “Why would I…” She trails off, not because she wants to, but because the world starts to go gray. She glares at the Sage before he vanishes, the blackness taking over as she’s kicked out of her own mindspace.

 

* * *

 

Ninjutsu.

Simple ninjutsu, and Sakura struggles.

_ ‘Your chakra is strange. It’s slow,’ _ Neji had said. 

She  _ felt _ what he meant. The chakra moves sluggishly at her call, fighting her every step of the way, and it frustrates her to no end.  _ Why won’t you work? _ She demands, glaring at the water she’s  _ trying _ to use a jutsu with. It’s a simple one - a small bullet of water shot from the hand.

But she can’t do it.

The chakra moves like mud through her system, and though she hadn’t felt it before, she feels it  _ now. _

“Damn it!” Sakura curses as water rises and immediately drops back down, sinking into the river. With a frustrated groan, she turns on her heel and leaves.

Her feet carry her to the nearest ninja store, where she buys three pieces of chakra paper - one for her and two for her teammates - and heads back to the river. She sits at the riverside and picks up the top paper, holding it between her fingers.

_ Just a small amount of chakra, _ the seller had told her.

With a small, gentle push, chakra pulses into the paper.

 

For a long minute, Sakura stares at the result.

 

“Oh,  _ shit.” _

 

A small leaf flutters to the ground from the tiny tree she now holds in her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
> 
> Who called it? High five!
> 
> (I'm still sick with the flu, but the doctor gave me some heavy duty codeine, and life is great again)


	10. Chapter 10

Sakura sits there by the water, having a small panic attack as she stares at the paper in her hand.

Only the edges are still paper. From the center of it, a tree has sprouted, weidling little leaves and branches that wiggle in the wind.

“Oh my god.” Sakura says quietly. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god…” She can’t shut up. Every word is gasped out, every syllable choking her, and the air itself seems to resist her lungs now. “Oh my  _ god, I’m so fucked. I’m so  _ **_fucked._ ** _ ” _ Sakura sobs, throwing the tree-paper into the river. It’s washed away immediately, sinking under the rushing tide, and Sakura hyperventilates.

“I’m going to die.”

“That seems a little dramatic.” Kakashi notes from just behind her, making her half-shriek, half-sob. She turns around, looking at him with wide, wide eyes, finding mild confusion on his face.

He hadn’t seen the tree - she can tell immediately from his expression. There’s a short pause as she absorbs that fact, and he continues to stare at her.

“Kakashi-sensei.” Sakura wails, throwing herself at him. He catches her gently, cradling her in warm arms, and she sobs into his chest.

“What’s gotten into you, Sakura? Tell sensei what’s the matter.”

Sakura wars with herself for a moment, knowing how dangerous this new secret is. She’s torn between terror over sharing it, and desperation to get help.

After several minutes of heaving sobs, Sakura pulls back and looks at Kakashi’s calm, concerned expression.

“Kakashi-sensei, I think I have the Mokuton.”

* * *

It’s nearly an hour later that Kakashi and her are sitting across from one another, a small tree sprouted on the ground between them. Kakashi’s studying it heavily, Sakura watching it warily, and the little tree seems to almost  _ dance _ in the breeze.

It had taken nearly twenty minutes to convince Kakashi she wasn’t talking crazy, and another forty for him to walk her through the simple practice of wielding her chakra in order to sprout a small tree.

A small, small tree.

It looks deceptively innocent, hiding the dark implications that it fills her and her sensei with.

“This… is good and bad news.” Kakashi finally breaks the silence. Sakura sniffles, tears fighting to the surface again, and she looks at him pathetically. “You know why it’s bad news, I take it?”

“Sensei, I just fought Orochimaru  _ himself. _ I  _ know _ what kind of experiments people would want to do on me if this came out.”

Kakashi looks almost apologetic, but mostly just uneasy. “True; you did do that. I’m very proud by the way.” He adds, but the unease creeps into his voice. He frowns down at the tree, eye narrowing. “The bad news first. There’s no way to hide this, Sakura-chan. I don’t know why you’re able to use the Mokuton, but it’s not something that you can keep from the public eye. People will find out, word will spread, and your secret will be broken before it can even form. We can’t hide it.” He says it gently, which she appreciates because she’s on the verge of breaking into tears again. 

“The good news is, it explains a few things I’ve been wondering about.”

“What things?” Sakura questions, blinking.

“Well… You’re very,  _ very _ in tune with your chakra. I’ve always noticed that… on top of that, you heal much, much faster than you have any right to. Which is characteristic of the Mokuton.”

“It is?” 

“Yes. And so is your chakra mass. Sasuke has a lot of chakra because of his Uchiha genes. Naruto has more than all three of us combined for reasons we don’t talk about. But you, you’re from a family of chūnin. Which isn’t bad, but it means… Well. Mediocre. And your chakra, and your chakra control, are far from mediocre.”

“How do you know so much about the Mokuton?” Sakura asks curiously, rubbing at her achy eyes, and Kakashi blinks slowly before responding.

“Hmm… well, that’s the other bit of good news. I’d been wondering who to have train you for your upcoming fights in the Chūnin Exams. Sasuke, I’m taking under my own wing. Naruto has all the power he needs to be a Chūnin, but he desperately needs to refine his skills, so I’ve picked out someone to help him with the basics. You, I had no idea who to have help. Luckily for us, I know just the man.”

_ Yamato, _ her mind supplies suddenly, clicking into place. She only has very faint memories of him, or she would’ve pieced it together much sooner. 

“But before we get into that… first, the other bit of bad news.” Kakashi says grimly, standing up and offering her his hand. “We need to tell the Hokage about this.”

* * *

 

  
“It shouldn’t be possible.” The Hokage says quietly, eyeing the tree on his desk. It had been a potted bonsai, but when Sakura had been asked to demonstrate, she’d turned the plant a little bit bigger.

...Okay, a lot bigger. Its roots overflowed from the sides of the pot it had fit neatly into before she got her hands on it. Dirt and leaves now cover the Hokage’s desk. 

Neither him nor Kakashi seem to even notice. 

“And yet.” Kakashi gestures helplessly at the tree. 

“Orochimaru never experimented on her. I know this for a fact. When we raided his laboratory, he’d kept very detailed notes in every one of his ghastly acts.” The Hokage muses, reaching up to put his pipe to his lips and inhale a deep breath. After a long moment, he exhales slowly. “This is a gift, but I do not understand it.”

“A gift? Not for her.” Kakashi says like she isn’t even there, and she frowns a little. 

“On the contrary. Sakura-chan.” The Hokage, clearly not forgetting her presence, looks at her. “You’re training as a medic-nin, are you not?”

“I am, Hokage-sama.”

“Hmph. This gift will help you immensely with those goals. The Mokuton is powerful in many areas, and healing is just one of them.” The man puffs his pipe again, frowning deeply. “You’ll need to be trained.”

“You’ll let him go free for this month?”

“Month?” The Hokage arches a brow. “She’ll need longer than that. The Mokuton is strong, and it’s also very dangerous to practice. I’ll release him from his duties until he feels she’s trained well enough.”

“Who?” Sakura cuts in, frowning at being ignored.

“Tenzō.” The Hokage says. “The only living experiment of Orochimaru’s attempts at recreating the Mokuton. He’s the only one in history except Hashirama-sama himself to have the kekkei genkai. And except, it seems, yourself.”

Sakura bites her lip, unnerved by the way the two men look at her now. 

“Tenzō is a friend of mine, Sakura-chan.” Kakashi says a bit more gently now. “He’ll be able to help you.”

“As for how you even have this ability to begin with…” The Hokage trails off, squinting at her, but Sakura looks at him helplessly.

She can’t exactly tell him that an old man in her dreams gave her his life force, could she?

“I don’t know how I got these powers, Hokage-sama.” She lies. “And I have no idea how to use them.” This, at least, is truthful.

“I see.” The Hokage peers at her for a moment longer, then glances at one of the ANBU in the corner. “Summon Tenzō. There’s someone here that needs to meet him.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It had taken Kakashi nearly forty minutes to coax the Mokuton from Sakura’s chakra. 

It takes Tenzō only five. 

Five minutes, and a tree has sprouted from a sheaf of paper that the Hokage had given to them. “Well, it’s the Mokuton.” He confirms the obvious. “I don’t understand how, but it’s definitely the Mokuton.” 

“What do we do?” Sakura asks anxiously, not sure how to feel about this ‘gift’ of hers. 

“This paints a target on her back.” Tenzō murmurs unhappily, looking up at the Hokage from where they sit cross-legged in front of his desk. The Hokage, leaning back against the desk while Kakashi hovers in the corner, frowns deeply and exhales a lungful of spiced smoke. 

“It does.” He confirms grimly. “Orochimaru is in the premises.” Tenzō twitches slightly at this. “We don’t know where he is, but it’s safe to say that he’s close at all times. Quietly lurking, waiting for his time to strike… he won’t be able to resist this.”

“He might. He’s set his sight on Sasuke.” Kakashi reminds the Hokage, who nods sharply.

“Yes. So you will take Sasuke away, outside of Konoha. Train him in solitude. You already planned to, did you not?”

“I did.” Kakashi confirms, glancing warily at Sakura.

“I thought so. We may be in luck. With his attention so fixed on Sasuke, he’ll likely be distracted by Kakashi taking him away. He may even be lured out of Konoha. He won’t strike yet - not until the Chūnin Exams come to a cusp. He’s planning something, you can be certain of that, and that’s just as certainly when he’ll strike.” The Hokage pauses, inhaling deeply and exhaling a scented plume. “Tenzō. I will speak with Shikaku Nara immediately. You and Sakura will go into Nara Forest and train there until I call for you.”

“What about the exams?” Sakura asks instantly, anxiety peaking.

“So long as Orochimaru remains oblivious to your skills, I see no reason to keep you from the Exams. Just be wary - and do not leave that forest until the day of the exams.” The Hokage says severely, eyeing them cautiously. “The forest is strictly off limits, and Orochimaru will have no interest in breaking in. Shikaku will take care of you both. Go there now, and do not leave until the morning of the exams.”

“Yes, Hokage-sama.” Tenzō says instantly, but Sakura hesitates, looking from the tree on the floor to the Hokage looming over.

“What about Naruto?” She blurts out before she can help herself.

“I’ll talk to Naruto.” Kakashi volunteers. “I’ll let him know you have a secret trainer.” He winks - she thinks from his tone, at least - at her. “He’ll be jealous but I’ll figure something out.”

“I have an idea about that, Kakashi-kun.” The Hokage murmurs, voice lowering so not to be overheard, but Sakura manages to hear some of it. “-student of mine- … -back for the Exams- … -interested in Naruto-...”

“Come with me.” Tenzō commands, standing up and offering her his hand. She takes it, gnawing her lip, and lets him pull her to her feet.

“Kakashi-sensei.” She says before Tenzō can drag her away. He pauses mid-speech, looking at her, and she gnaws on her lip. “Take care of them?” She asks meekly, unable to think of something better to say.

Kakashi softens and smiles, his eye crinkling at the edges. “Of course, Sakura-chan. I’ll make sure they’re safe.”

“We both will.” The Hokage promises. “Focus on your training, Sakura-chan.” He smiles warmly at her, inclining his head in silent dismissal. “Your skills will be of great use to us in the coming days.”

Sakura smiles weakly, a shiver running down her spine, and lets Tenzō pull her to the nearest window. She quietly leaps out alongside him, and together they turn towards Nara forest. 

She doesn’t expect him to crouch down. “Climb on my back. I’ll take you to the forest unseen.”

Her faint smile falters, nerves spiking, before she climbs on the stranger’s back. 

With a silent spring and a gentle shift of air, they’re off in a flicker, vanishing into the night.

 

* * *

 


	11. Chapter 11

Mokuton training might be one of the most difficult things Sakura has ever done in her life.

It’s even worse than learning to use the Yin Seal in her first life, she discovers. Not because it’s  _ hard _ to call upon the chakra, but because it’s  _ dangerous. _

“Too little, and your plants will wilt in the breeze. Too much, and you become a plant yourself. Trust me, you do not want to experience that.” Tenzō says quietly, making a flower spring to life under his fingertips. “The Mokuton is a living, breathing thing. It’s an attachment to you, not part of you. Too little and it doesn’t bond. Too much, and you bond too much.”

“I see.” Sakura observed, and it was true enough. It had taken three days for him to teach her how to feel the Mokuton chakra within her - something that had taken him two weeks, apparently. She can feel it curling through her system now that she recognizes it for what it is. She feels it crawling under her skin.

She feels it in the air she breathes.

“The Mokuton is life itself, in its purest, most basic form.” The flower dances under his palm, winding up into a small circle curving around his hand. “It’s untamable, but it can be directed if approached properly.”

Tenzō is a deep thinker, Sakura recognizes as they go through practices. They start small - blades of grass, little flowers, small bonsais - and move up toward bigger goals. Trees and wood blocks that she manipulates like water.

Well.  _ Tenzō  _ manipulates like water. Every movement of the wood is smooth and flowing for him. For her, it’s more like moving a battering ram through mud. 

But she practices, she learns, and slowly, she begins to master the basics of the Mokuton.

“You’re an excellent student,” Tenzō tells her, a few meagre days before the Exams’ tournament. “Extraordinary insight and talent. You learn at a pace I can barely keep up with.” He smiles and she beams proudly back at him.

This, she thinks, is something that is purely hers. Her past life has had no influence over this. None at all.

The Mokuton is  _ hers, _ and the only thing that’s hers alone. 

It gives her a level of self confidence she hadn’t realized she’d been lacking, and she soaks up Tenzō’s knowledge and teachings like a sponge.

She doesn’t master the Mokuton in a month - but she masters the basics, and that’s already stunning progress, according to him.

“Perhaps it’s because your Mokuton’s origin is more…  _ natural _ than my own. Perhaps it’s simply skill. Perhaps it’s both.” Tenzō shrugs as they eat lunch in a forest of their own making. “You  _ are _ a genius.”

“Hardly.” Sakura wraps her arms loosely around her legs, rocking slightly on her rear. “I’m just… intuitive.”

“You’re a genius, Sakura. Accept it. Embrace it, even. Kakashi-senpai has, Shikamaru-san and Shikaku-sama have. Look at them.”

“You think I should be lazier?” Sakura questions, arching a brow, and Tenzō smiles reluctantly.

“Not lazy, no. But embrace it and let yourself relax a little.”

“I’m not fighting it.”

“But you are.” Tenzō argues. “You’re hiding your skills and your insight, and I’m not certain why, but I know you must be. Otherwise we would have discovered this much sooner.” He gestures to the block of wood she’d just finished winding through the treetops before they’d stopped for lunch.

She can’t tell him the truth. She can’t tell him that she genuinely  _ hadn’t  _ had the Mokuton until just recently. So she bites her lip, looks at him uneasily, and fights back tears of frustration. It takes about two seconds for Tenzō’s expression to go from searching to panicked.

“Don’t cry! I didn’t mean to make you cry!”

“I’m not crying!” Sakura protests, tears running down her face. She swipes them away with grubby, dirty hands, no doubt streaking her face. “I’m not. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Sakura.” Tenzō says with a soft huff, pulling himself back together. “Just… promise me you won’t hold back anymore.”

“But Orochimaru-”   
  
“I mean after the Exams.”

“But Orochimaru-”

“He’ll be dead once he reveals whatever stunt he’s pulling.” Tenzō says with certainty.

Sakura knows he’s wrong.

She knows that Sarutobi is going to die and Orochimaru is going to lose his arms. She know that Itachi and Kisame will come to Konoha in the aftermath of a miniature war, only pushing Sasuke further towards Orochimaru’s side.

She knows all of this.

She says absolutely nothing.

 

* * *

 

“I’m an awful person.” Sakura confides to the Sage the night before the Exams. Shikaku had let them sleep in a musty house on the outskirts of the Nara compound for the night, which feels far more luxurious than it has any right to. But they’d been sleeping in the forest for a month, so she forgives her adoration for a simple tatami mat.

“You aren’t.” The Sage assures her as he ducks under a swipe from her. 

They aren’t practicing with her bō staff - freshly repaired by her Mokuton, which she’d torn the Sage a new one over not telling her about.

Instead, they’re practicing with her tantō for once. “I should do more.”

“You can’t.” The Sage tells her. Sakura scoffs, slashing his arm with a quick, sweeping move. It heals over instantly, of course, but she’d landed a blow, and she can’t help but grin at that.

She kind of deserves it when her feet are swept out from under her a moment later. She lands on her back and stares up at the white abyss, blinking slowly. “I’m terrible.”

“You aren’t.” The Sage sighs, looming over her. He doesn’t offer her a hand, instead leaning on his staff and frowning down at her. “No one can know about us, Sakura. About me, and yourself.”

“But I could help people.”

“No, you couldn’t.” He refutes quietly. “You wouldn’t be believed for a second. Or worse, you would be, and would be thus exploited for your knowledge.” He pauses for a long minute.

Sakura wants to protest, but she can’t.

Naruto would exuberantly grill her for every detail. Sasuke would demand knowledge. Tsunade-shishou would command her to tell her everything.

She’s not even sure what the current Hokage would do if she spilled, but she knows now that the man isn’t infallible. His coldness to Itachi’s dilemma had proven that. 

“Then what do I do?” Sakura asks quietly, trying not to sound as lost as she feels. “How do I keep going on like I don’t know what’s coming? How do I just… stand idly by?”

“You don’t, of course.” The Sage huffs. “You continue on. You fight, and you win. What is your next step, Sakura?”

“What do you mean?”

“What’s the first thing you’ll do tomorrow?”

Sakura blinks up at him. “Warm ups and practice.”

“And then?”

“The Exams.”

“And then?”

“I-...” She pauses, blinking. “I’m… not sure.” Last time, she’d been useless to fight Gaara. She could be useful this time, healing people…

Or…

Or she could help with Gaara. But Naruto wouldn’t need it, would he?

But, no. Sasuke had been wounded by the curse seal. He’d need help, and it could be her chance to prove to him that they work better as a team than alone…

Well, then. That settles that. “I help Naruto and Sasuke fight Gaara.”

There’s a short pause where the Sage studies her, and then he smiles his wrinkled, pale white face.

“Yes. You will.”

 

* * *

 

The month passes quickly, but also slowly. Sakura makes progress with the Mokuton, and Tenzō’s patience is endless. 

Still, the days seem to drag on as they approach the Chūnin Exams. 

Tenzō clearly picks up on her worry and offers her a small smile. “You’re already an excellent shinobi, kōhai. Just keep the Mokuton between us until Orochimaru is dealt with, and everything will be alright.”

Sakura nods, even as worry shivers down her spine.

It was only a matter of time before Orochimaru sets his sights on her. 

“Senpai?” She questions and he looks at her curiously. “How did you escape Orochimaru?”

His jaw tightens and he goes quietly for several seconds. ”He left me for dead.” He explains at last. “All the others were dead or dying. He thought I was next and abandoned the project. 

“Oh.” Sakura winces and looks down at the ground, uncomfortable. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s long in the past.” Tenzō reassures her, smiling again.  

“Still.”

“Yes.” He acknowledges graciously. 

“He’s going to come after me.”

“Most likely.” Tenzō admits. “But not for some time. He had a setback in the Exams. He’ll still be stinging from it when he strikes again. It’s unlikely you’ll face him again, but if you do…” He trails off for a long, pained moment. “I wouldn’t suggest using the Mokuton.”

“No.” Sakura agrees, scratching at her cheek. “Probably wouldn’t be a good idea.” She considers heavily for a moment, then looks at her mentor curiously, a gleam in her eyes. “Senpai?”

“Yes, kōhai?” He asks lightly, seeming amused.

It doesn’t last when she speaks again. 

“I hear the Mokuton can control Bijū.”

For a moment, he just stares at her, a tenseness falling over his shoulders.

“Can you teach me?”

There’s a pause, him examining her with a severe, unpleasant eye.

 

“...Yes. I can teach you.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter's a little shorter than usual. Been sick with the flu for two weeks now ;-;. Send me wishes and vitamin C as I battle it out of my system.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, baby \o/  
> Finally kicked the flu's butt. Took weeks. Miserable weeks. Makes the recovery all the sweeter. And here's a chapter for you, longer than usual to make up for the lack of updates.  
> Enjoy ♪

The Exams are two days later, so Sakura only has enough time to learn the bare basics of ‘controlling’ a bijū. It’s less controlling as subduing, she realizes quickly, and that’s just perfect in her opinion.

“Be careful out there.” Tenzō says quietly, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder. “You’ll do fine.”

“Thanks, senpai.” Sakura beams at him, bō ever faithfully at her side, and readies herself. 

The Chūnin Exams begin, and Sakura watches as she patiently waits for her turn. Naruto and Neji go first, with Neji narrowly losing to Naruto’s sheer unpredictability. It’s something she loves about the boy, how suddenly his genius can shine when he lets it. 

Sasuke and Gaara are  _ supposed _ to go next, but Sasuke mysteriously doesn’t show.

_ Kakashi’s going to be dramatic again, _ Sakura reflects. She can feel it in the air.

The fights go on until it’s her turn, and she ready to face down the Sound ninja when it’s announced that he’s deceased. She’s declared winner by default, which has her blinking flatly at the announcer, Genma. The man shrugs up at her.

So they go to the next round - Temari and Shikamaru - and Sakura sits back and watches with some fascination.

Shikamaru’s a genius of the mind in the same way she is, but so much better. It’s simply fascinating to watch him work Temari like a fiddle, even if he does give up at the last moment.  _ So close, _ Sakura reflects as the fight wraps to a sudden, uninspiring end. “So clooose.” Sakura groans, feeling oddly disenchanted. 

“Ne, don’t worry about it, Sakura-chan.” Naruto says blithely. “Shouldn’t’ve expected anything else from him.” He adds with a wrinkle of his nose. Sakura can’t help but grin a little at that.

_ True, _ she thinks but doesn’t say, instead looking out at the battlefield. “I think it’s my turn?” She suggests uncertainly.

“Only if Sasuke doesn’t show up, the asshole.” Naruto huffs.

As if summoned by his words, Sasuke and Kakashi appear in the arena in a swirl of wind and leaves.

_ I knew he’d be dramatic. _

Gaara sweeps into the arena moments later and the match starts.

Then not so after, it ends.

 

* * *

* * *

 

Sakura darts from person to person, giving them small jolts of chakra to undo the genjutsu that’s set them all to sleep. Most of the shinobi aren’t actually asleep (she gives Shikamaru a hard slap for that one) but either lying in wait or outright fighting back.

“Go after Sasuke, Sakura, Naruto.” Kakashi advises as he ducks under an attack, Sakura bringing up her bō to swat the shinobi on the back of the head. He staggers and Kakashi strikes, blood spraying over them.    
  
“Oh, gross,” Naruto complains as some of it gets on his sweatshirt.

“Oh  _ you’re _ complaining?” Sakura demands, pointedly tugging on a red strand of her hair. Naruto concedes to her point with a small nod.

“Focus.”

“Focusing.” Naruto salutes quickly before he vanishes.

Sakura skirts after him, cussing quietly under her breath. She looks over her shoulder and offers Kakashi a jaunty wave before flickering away too, chasing Naruto down in seconds. “You should get faster.” She scolds when she reaches his side, taking his hand so they flicker together. It speeds them up a bit, sharing chakra like this, and they chase down Gaara’s teammates in no time.

Kankuro is first, and they ignore him until they meet Temari, at which point Sakura skids to a stop and twists around, freeing her hand from Naruto’s. “Go, I’ll take care of them and catch up.”

“Are you sure?” Naruto asks in a frenzied sort of way, looking torn.

“I’m sure.” Sakura grins and grips one end of her bō, pulling it away from the rest. A small sword - just bigger than a tantō - and a weighted  short staff left behind. “I’ll be fine. It’ll be fun.” She lies, because real fighting is never fun, but Naruto accepts her grin for the truth.

“Catch up soon.” He demands and she nods before he flickers away.

_ Okay. Temari and Kankuro. Avoid the fan, avoid the puppets. Easy enough, _ Sakura tells herself as she swings the sword in a small circle. _ Easy enough. _ She repeats.

It doesn’t make her believe it any more than the first time had.

 

* * *

 

  
Fighting them is worse than anything Sakura has had to do yet, including fighting Zabuza and Haku. This time, instead of needles and giant swords, she has to deal with puppets that move like people and wind that moves like…

...Well, like the wind.

Fast and  _ furious. _

She has blood covering her by the time she takes Kankuro down with one of his own poisoned weapons, turned away by her sword and stabbed back into his shoulder. Temari attacks with a fury after that, not that she hadn’t already been ferocious enough. Blood covers her, but at least the wounds heal relatively quickly.

The fight goes on. Sakura had had time to analyze Temari’s fighting pattern during her fight with Shikamaru, but she doesn’t have the blessing of having Shikamaru on her side. She cuts and gets cut three times over each time.

Until, eventually, she  _ does _ have Shikamaru.

Temari freezes in place, and a sweaty Shikamaru holds her there, nearly gutted by Sakura before she catches herself. For a moment she can only stand there, panting and staring at the boy, sword pressed to his throat.

“Sakura. It’s  _ me.” _ Shikamaru implores, and after a painfully long second, she lowers her sword.

_ Kami… I was that close to killing him.  _ She can’t help but think, doubling over for a second before outright sitting down.

In the horizon, she can see a giant sand creature. 

“Sorry.” She says sideways to Shikamaru, keeping her eyes on the beast. 

The Ichibi.

_ Shukaku _ . 

“It’s fine. Battle fever.” Shikamaru pants out. “Go. Go help your teammates.”

A fox, huge and nine-tailed, springs from the trees and slams down the Ichibi.  _ Kurama, _ Sakura thinks, but the rush of malevolent energy never comes. 

“I don’t think they need me.” She admits to Shikamaru.

“They always need you.” He huffs. “Remember the Forest?”

“They were unconscious.”

“I don’t see Sasuke, do you?” Shikamaru points out.

Memories flicker in her mind and slowly settle into place.

Sasuke collapsing.

Her trying to help.

Being pinned to a tree by sand that slowly crushed her further and further, until it took three medic-nins to heal her ribs and spine.

“Good point.” She looks at Kankuro, lying face down in the dirt.

After a moment of staring, silently taking a moment to just  _ breathe, _ she gets up and walks over to him.

“Leave my brother alone!” Temari snarls but doesn’t move an inch. Sakura crouches down and turns Kankuro over, then presses a green glowing hand to his chest.

“Sakura?” Shikamaru demands warily.

“I’m just checking on him.” She promises. “He’s not dying. A paralytic, I think. He can probably still hear us. In which case, sorry about the rocks, Kankuro-san. But you  _ did _ attack me.” Sakura points out to the motionless form. She stands up and brushes the dirt off her hands, then turns to Temari. “Sorry, Temari-san.” She approaches the woman, who struggles for a moment (judging by her facial expressions) before settling for a furious growl. “You aren’t half as scary as Naruto in a fit.” Sakura confesses apologetically.

Three strings of rope later and she has the woman firmly secured. She’d use Kankuro’s weapons, but she doesn’t know how potent the paralytic is, and doesn’t want to risk using too much or too little. “I’d keep them under surveillance.”

“I was already planning on it.” Shikamaru quirks a small, strained smile. Indeed, his shadow has stretched to Kankuro as well. “Get out of here. Before it’s too late.”

“It’s not going to be too late.” Sakura reaches up to pull her long pink hair into a ponytail. “If you see Gaara get taken down, let them go.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“They have orders, don’t they?” Sakura questions Temari, who grits her teeth and glares. “He’s their brother.” She adds a bit more gently. “Even if he can be a monster, he’s still their brother. They tried to protect him.” The glare hardens and Sakura steps back, away from them all. “Good luck, Shikamaru-san.”

“Good luck, Sakura-san.” He returns before she turns and flickers into the trees.

She doesn’t go to Naruto or Gaara.

She goes for Sasuke instead, finding him collapsed on a tree branch and clutching his neck. “Sasuke!” She cries out, crouching down and grabbing hold of him. He groans at the touch and she hauls him over one shoulder, flickering away from the bijū warzone and halfway back to Shikamaru. She lowers him to a tree branch and reaches for his neck. One hand is clutching the curse seal and she covers his hand with hers, using the Mystical Palm Jutsu to feel out the damage.

She hisses softly at the toxic touch and Sasuke groans louder, curling tighter in on himself. “Sorry. Sorry, Sasuke.” She apologizes helplessly. She looks up at a loud roar and sees Naruto’s fox-form vanish and a toad replace it. “Keep holding it back, Sasuke. You can beat Orochimaru’s jutsu.” Sakura encourages, wincing at the dark chakra seeping through Sasuke’s fingers and onto her palm. It itches furiously but doesn’t quite burn, so she ignores it and squeezes tighter. “Listen to my voice. Listen to me, Sasuke. Fight it.” She urges.

“I’m… trying.” Sasuke grits out.

“Good. Keep trying. Keep it at bay if nothing else.” She looks towards the horizon, where Naruto and Gaara still fight, and anxiety prickles at her stomach.  _ Don’t be silly. You know it works out. _

Yet it still calls to her.

The nervousness. The uncertainty.

“Sasuke. Stay here.” Sakura says before she even fully decides to. 

“Sakura-” Sasuke chokes out but she shoves to her feet.

“Stay here. I’ll be right back. I promise.” Sakura vows fiercely, squeezing his free hand. “Just stay here.”

Sasuke says nothing, only giving a moment to glare at her before he doubles over with a groan.

Sakura hesitates a moment, torn between a helpless medic and a daring teammate.

The daring teammate wins over.

She rushes to the battle.

The trees are devastated by the time she arrives, less than a minute later. She lands in the middle of it, of Gaara’s Shukaku body being pinned down by the toad. “Naruto!” Sakura screams before running up the nearest surface - that of the toad.

“Oi! I don’t let just anyone ride me!” The toad complains instantly.

“I’m not riding you. I’m propelling off you.” Sakura corrects before she does just that. With a harsh pump of chakra to her feet, she lunges from the top of the toad and lands on Shukaku, whose sand immediately tries to consume her feet. “Naruto!”

“Sakura!” Naruto cries out from inside a small, sand prison.

Sakura reaches back, swings out, and her reassembled bō slams into the side of Gaara’s slumped face.

There’s a moment of silence following the harsh  _ thunk, _ and then the sand begins to unravel.

With a quiet, but high pitched squeak, Sakura drops out of the air.

Only to be caught a moment later by a slick, leathery palm. “I gotcha girlie.” The toad huffs, lowering her down to the ground. She wavers for a moment, staring at Naruto and Gaara. They’re lying prone, heads turned towards each other, and she can see the red welt forming on the side of Gaara’s terrified face. She can’t hear them, but she can see whatever Naruto is saying is having an impact. 

_ Was this how it was the first time around? _ She wonders, climbing off the palm and offering a quiet but sincere thank you. She doesn’t hear what the toad rumbles back, too busy stumbling towards Naruto and Gaara. Naruto, who drags himself closer by the chin of his head. Gaara, who tries to wriggle away with an absolutely  _ terrified _ expression. “No! Stay back!” He snaps almost pleadingly.

Naruto ignores him.

Sakura watches for a moment, then turns and flickers back to Sasuke’s side. She crouches down immediately, dropping her bō at her side. “Sasuke.” She breathes out at the limp form. “Sasuke, are you alright?” She asks, gripping his shoulders and rolling him face up. His eyes are open but so tired it makes her feel tired just to look at him. “Are you with me?” She asks quietly, running a hand over his forehead. He feels hot and sweaty, his hair slicking back a bit at her touch.

“I’m here.” He rasps out. 

“Come on.” Sakura urges, half-dragging him to his feet. He slumps against her but not too much, and she slides her bō staff into the harness on her back. “Naruto and I took out Gaara. We should be safe.”

“Safe?” Sasuke echoes in a strange tone. 

“Yeah.” Her mind spins for a second before she hauls him up properly. She licks her lips, weighing the pros and cons, before carefully speaking. “The seal took you down, but Naruto and I were able to work together. I’m sorry it hurt you so terribly. I’m sorry I couldn’t help.”

“It’s not your fault.” Sasuke says quietly.

She nods, and is about to flicker them away when he speaks again.

“It was Orochimaru’s fault.”

  
  


* * *

 

Relief - overwhelming relief - leaves her breathless as they travel back to Naruto’s side. The boy is lying right beside Gaara now, both of them wielding red, angry circles on their foreheads.

Naruto’s doing, no doubt.

Sakura drops down beside Naruto, Sasuke lowering a moment later. He already seems to have mostly recovered, barely even leaning on her at the end of their short trip. Whatever the Curse Seal did to him, it was temporary. “You look like trash.” Sasuke notes and Sakura snorts softly. Naruto, being Naruto, just grins at him, looking unbelievably proud of himself. 

“Yeah, so do you.” Naruto says and Sasuke grins. Sakura smiles broadly at that, then looks to Gaara.

There’s definitely a red welt on the side of his face now. She reaches out, pausing at his flinch, and channels some chakra into her palm. It glows green with healing chakra. “I’m a medic-nin, Gaara-san. I can fix the damage I did.”

“Why?” He demands instantly. Not aggressively, but more… uncertainly. 

Sakura’s face softens at that. “Because you deserve it, Gaara-san. You deserve a bit of healing.”

He doesn’t respond to that, eyes wide and uncertain, but he doesn’t turn away when she reaches out again. Her hand hovers over his skin, not quite touching, and the chakra pools between their flesh.

 

It’s a short process to heal him, but it feels like it takes all the time in the world.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Making up for my absence with another quick chapter ♥ Enjoy!

Sakura hovers anxiously in Sasuke’s hospital room, waiting for them to give him the all-clear. Kakashi stands beside her, but instead of helplessly standing there, he’s doing something to the seal on Sasuke’s neck.

“It’s the best you can do for this sort of seal.” Jiraiya says from just behind them. Sakura flinches slightly, still unused to the man’s presence. Something about him unnerves her.

_ A life you could have lived, _ a voice in the back of her mind tells her. It sounds like the Sage, quiet and solemn for reasons she doesn’t understand.

“But it wasn’t enough.” Sakura speaks up, looking over her shoulder at the towering, tall man. A sage in his own right. She quickly looks back down at Sasuke, something about Jiraiya feeling  _ wrong _ to her. The sight of the unconscious boy shouldn’t settle her, but it does. “It crippled him in the middle of combat.”

“Because he tried to draw on its power.” Jiraiya harrumphs softly. “Consciously or not.” She shoots a quick glance back to see him frowning thoughtfully. “I can try to teach him to control that, but frankly, I only have basic knowledge of the seal. Anko-”

“-would terrorize him.” Kakashi cuts in disapprovingly. “You’ve been away a long time but I  _ know _ you haven’t forgotten how she can be.”

Jiraiya chuckles sheepishly. “How could I? Anko is a truly blessed woman, in a great many ways.”

“And a truly cruel one in all the other ways.” Kakashi points out sharply. “No, I wouldn’t suggest-”

“I’m not suggesting.” Jiraiya is the one to cut in now, his voice going stern. “I’m telling you that she’s your best and only real chance, given that she’s the only one to fight off the curse seal herself.”

“Someone else has this seal?” Sakura pipes in and Jiraiya looks at her, nodding severely.

“The only other person to survive this type of curse seal. At least that we know of. And we’d know if they weren’t.” Jiraiya reaches up to rub the back of his neck, sighing heavily. “No, Anko is your best bet. I’d have them meet as soon as possible and see if they can’t come to an understanding.”

“Anko? Come to an understanding with a prepubescent boy? What are the chances of that?” Kakashi snorts, reaching up to rub at his uncovered eye. “This is a terrible idea.”

“All the best ideas are.” Jiraiya says cheerfully, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Anko takes Sasuke, I take Naruto, and you take Pinkie.”

“Hey!” Sakura protests, reaching up to touch her hair. It’s more red than pink now, even three days after the battle, because she hasn’t had a chance to clean it. She’s been too busy working at the hospital to take a real shower, though her hands have seen  _ plenty _ of washing.

So much that her fingertips are dry and cracking, though she heals the damage every time it happens. Bloody fingertips would ruin the entire point of washing her hands to begin with. 

“My name’s  _ Sakura.” _

“Terrible name for a shinobi.” Jiraiya decides instantly, wrinkling his nose. “I’ll call you Kura, if you insist.”

“You want to call me  _ cellar?” _ She demands sharply and Jiraiya shrugs.

“It’s better than a name that proclaims ‘short life’.”

“My life isn’t going to be short!”

“Not with a name like Kura!”

“Sakura’s just fine as it is!” Sakura stamps her foot, glaring at Jiraiya, who huffs loudly.

“Fine! Keep the cursed name! Honestly, who names their child  _ Sakura?” _

“My  _ parents,  _ that’s who!”

“Children, please.” Kakashi sighs heavily. “You’re going to wake Sasuke.”

Sakura reaches out and taps her fingers to Sasuke’s forehead, giving a small jolt of chakra. “No we won’t.” She proclaims, frowning disapprovingly at Kakashi and Jiraiya.

Jiraiya, who proceeds to lean over at Kakashi and whisper too loudly, “Maybe you should foist her off to someone, too, on second thought.”

Sakura lets out a wordless sound of anger.

  
  


* * *

 

In the end, Kakashi doesn’t even train her. “This is your responsibility.” He tells Tenzō in the most severe voice Sakura’s ever heard.

It’d be touching, if he weren’t physically thrusting her towards the younger man as he spoke. Tenzō steadies her by grabbing her shoulders and she turns to glare at Kakashi, folding her arms disapprovingly across her chest.

“It’s not like I can teach you what he can.” Kakashi says apologetically.

Sakura glares harder.

“I don’t really have anything I  _ can _ teach you, honestly.”

She continues to glare.

“Look, if anything pops into my head that I can teach you, I’ll come interrupt you guys and teach you. Alright?”

Sakura huffs but nods. “Fine. But I’m holding you to that. I expect at least one jutsu a week.”

“A  _ week?” _ Kakashi whines.

“A week!”

“Fine. A week. Demanding…”

“Senpai.” Tenzō sighs heavily, his hands still on Sakura’s shoulders, and that stops her from attempting to smack her sensei with her bō. Instead she grits her teeth and looks away, hoping she radiates her disapproval.

She must be radiating  _ something _ because Kakashi heaves a heavy sigh. “Goodbye, Sakura-chan. I’ll see you in a week.”

She looks at him just in time to see him vanish in a swirl of leaves.

“Poor man.” Sakura decides after a moment and Tenzō pauses, hands sliding off her shoulders.

“Hm?”

“He really can’t handle anything emotional, can he?” She questions, tilting her head back to look up at Tenzō’s chin. He looks down, arching a brow before offering her a commiserating look.

“He really can’t.” He admits with a sigh. After a moment to mourn Kakashi’s lack of emotional radar, he claps his hands together. “Let’s get to work, then.”

 

* * *

 

 

It’s only two weeks later that they hear the news.

“Kakashi-sensei.” Sakura sniffles, sitting at his bedside while Tenzō speaks to Kurenai, Gai, and Asuma in hushed undertones. 

She reaches out to gently brush his hair out of his face, sending a small trickle of chakra into his mind, and is immediately overwhelmed by the damage inside. “What the hell happened to him?” She demands, looking sharply at the four jōnin. They freeze, exchanging quick glances before Tenzō nods. They hesitate a moment longer, then Kurenai clears her throat.

“An extreme genjutsu. The most extreme of them. He was tortured for seventy-two hours in less than three seconds.”

Sakura considers that for a moment, then looks back down at the pale skin of her sensei’s. 

_ No wonder he looks so terrible. No wonder he  _ **_feels_ ** _ so terrible. _ She muses, touching his mind again.

She considers the damage for a long minute, then begins to heal, just a little, just enough to  _ see. _

“Sakura?” Tenzō questions, dropping his usual ‘kōhai’ in the presence of new people.

She hums absently, focusing on the task at hand. The room goes silent around her, only the gentle thrumming of her chakra breaking it. After several minutes, she looks over her shoulder and smiles in relief. “I can help him.” She says, and Kurenai breaks out in a grin of her own. Relief washes across all their faces. “But it’s going to take me a while.”

“We hardly mind.” Asuma says reassuringly. “Do your work, Sakura.”

“I’m certain you’ll manage it, Sakura-chan.” Gai says with a winning smile that she returns.

She looks back down at Kakashi and focuses, attempting to mend some of the worst of the damage. It isn’t easy, and the psychic feedback from the intense genjutsu still sends ripples through his mind. Like a stone in a small koi pond, constantly rippling back and forth.

“Kakashi-sensei-” Sasuke’s voice cuts her concentration, though Kurenai hurries to shush him. “What the hell happened?” He demands, ignoring Kurenai.

“A genjutsu.” Sakura explains distractedly. “A really,  _ really _ strong one. I’m trying to heal him.”

“Heal away a genjutsu?” Sasuke questions, his brow furrowing, she just  _ knows it. _

It’s an instant later that the door slams open, so loudly that she jumps. “Is it true that Itachi Uchiha was in Konoha?” The new member of the party demands. “And that he’s after Naruto?”

There’s a moment of silence, broken by Gai groaning and Kurenai muttering a fierce, “Idiot!”

Sakura looks over to see Sasuke shove past the newcomer, rushing off, and Gai hurrying after. He pauses in the doorway and jabs a finger at her, making her blink. “You! Focus on Kakashi. Get him back on his feet, we’ll need him if we want to fight Itachi again.”

“Yes, sir!” She says quickly, then closes her eyes and focuses as much as she can.

* * *

 

It takes thirty minutes to heal Kakashi enough for him to wake up, blinking bleary eyes up at her. He looks  _ off, _ but she expects he looks pretty good for someone who was just tortured for seventy-two hours. “Kakashi!” Kurenai exclaims in relief.

“Senpai, Sasuke took off after Itachi.” Tenzō cuts in, straight to the point, and Kakashi’s eye widens immediately in alarm. The drowsiness seems to vanish and he shoves himself upright, nearly smacking his forehead into Sakura’s. She leans back hastily, scrambling to her feet so Kakashi can stand up.

“Gai-sensei went after him, and Naruto’s with Jiraiya-sama. Between the four of them, Naruto’s got to be safe.” Sakura says, but she can’t quite help the unease in her own voice. She wrings her hands, biting her lip, and watches as Kakashi stands, wavering on his feet for a brief second before steadying.

“That’s not going to be enough. Not against them. Whatever Itachi did to me, even Jiraiya won’t make it through that.” Kakashi says quietly, rubbing at his face. His mask falls and he doesn’t even seem to notice, but Sakura tenses, eyes widening at the brief glance of his face. It worries her even more, like a glimpse of weakness she has no business seeing. “Come on.” Kakashi says, fixing his mask. “We need to move.”

“We can’t fight him.” Asuma says grimly. “We were worthless in that fight.”

“I wasn’t talking to you three. Sakura?” He reaches out a hand to her.

She blinks a couple times, then takes the hand. 

“We’ll be back. Warn ANBU if you haven’t already.” Kakashi says with confidence that she doesn’t share.

“Yes, senpai.” Tenzō promises, bowing quickly to them before vanishing in a flicker.

A moment later, so do they.

 

* * *

 

In the end, Kakashi swings Sakura onto his back so they can flicker faster. Faster and further they go, until Konoha is far behind and a little town waits ahead. A festival, Sakura recognizes once they’re in.

_ A strange place to attack a boy, _ Sakura muses. 

“Where to start? Ah, a hotel, of course.” Kakashi muses aloud. “Come along.”

He drops her beside him, but keeps a firm grip on her hand. They flicker again, reappearing inside the nearest hotel, and thus scare the wits out of the poor owner. “What the- What-”

“Hello!” Kakashi greets with cheeriness she can tell is false. “We’re looking for a madman on the loose. Long grey hair to his knees, has a noisy blonde boy with him, both have spiky hair? Ring any bells?”

The shaken hotel owner quickly shakes his head.

They flicker away, Sakura awkwardly waving as they go, and then reappear in another hotel.

This one, they have more luck with.

“It’s been a while, Sasuke.” They hear as they round the corner.

“Sasuke! Naruto!” Sakura shouts, clapping her hands together.

She’s fully prepared to throw up a wooden wall between them, but Kakashi grabs one wrist and wrenches her palms apart. She looks at him in confusion, then quickly back over at the men dressed in black cloaks. Red clouds cover them, but there’s no mistaking Itachi Uchiha, even with his back to them and his body covered. The black hair is identical to Sasuke’s, if a bit more tame.

Plus, the other guy is a blue fish-looking guy. 

“I thought I took care of you.” Itachi says, turning halfway to look at Kakashi.

_ “I _ took care of him.” Sakura spits out furiously. “And you won’t take him out like that again. Or any of us.”

“No? And you’re going to stop me?” Itachi questions, head tilting.

“Move! He’s mine!” Sasuke snarls and lunges. 

Kakashi grabs him by the collar and throws him backwards, then flings himself forward instead. “Now, Sakura!”

Sakura smacks her hands together and drops, pressing them flat to the floor.

The floor  _ ripples, _ actually making the fish guy stumble a bit.

Then it springs up.

A wall rises from the ground, cutting Itachi and the fish guy off from Naruto, who exclaims just before the wall reaches the ceiling. 

Firmly cut off in the strongest Mokuton in her meager arsenal (but no less powerful for it), Kakashi can safely fight the two men. 

Sakura looks backwards at Sasuke, who’s sitting up against the far wall and staring at the wood with wide eyes.

After a moment, the eyes shift to her. “You…?”

“Yep.” Sakura confirms, then flashes him a slightly tired grin as she continues to pulse chakra through the wall to maintain its stability. “I’ve got the Mokuton.”

“The  _ Mokuton?” _ Sasuke clarifies.

“The Mokuton.” Sakura nods, then smiles tiredly at him. “Guess teammates are good for something, ne?”

There’s a moment’s pause, and then Sasuke grins somewhat ferally, the rage swarming back into his eyes. He looks past her and at the fighting shinobi. “Think you can hold that wall against a Chidori?”

“Oh, yes.” Sakura confirms.

Sasuke stands up, his eyes narrowing, and lightning crackles in the air. “Grab Itachi’s feet.”

“Yessir!” Sakura gives a playful salute before she places the hand back to the floor. With one hand maintaining the wall, she uses the other to draw up roots, grabbing Itachi’s ankles as Sasuke charges.

He doesn’t quite make it.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am on an unstoppable roll to make up for all that time of writers block/flu from hell.
> 
> As always, enjoy! ♥

 

* * *

 

 

 

Itachi completely ignores the roots around his feet. He snatches Sasuke clean out of the air and slams him against the wall, and Sakura does the only thing she can.

The old wall crumbles, and a new one springs up in the space between Itachi and Sasuke.

Naruto instantly lunges with a ferocious cry, leaping at Itachi, and the man yanks his hand back just in time to avoid the Mokuton. Kakashi kicks Kisame backwards and past Naruto, whose hand goes claw-like and slashes at Itachi. 

“Swap!” Kisame snaps before going for Naruto. Itachi does  _ something _ and the roots crumble, twisting to grab Kakashi and kick him in the jaw. Kakashi goes down, Kisame slashes his sword at Naruto, and Sakura watches helplessly for a moment.

“Let me out!” Sasuke screams and Sakura bites her lip, unsettled by the way he’d attacked Itachi. 

But also unwilling to leave him locked away for safety. That would hardly prove to him that teamwork was  _ good _ and not hindering. 

Reluctantly, she drops the wall, reaching up to wipe sweat from her brow. The Mokuton is strong, but it’s also  _ draining. _ Sasuke lunges for Itachi again, only to get his arm grabbed by the man. With a harsh twist and a crunch even she can hear, Sasuke goes down on one knee with a cry. Kakashi’s hand goes for Itachi’s eyes, using, from what Sakura can tell, a wind jutsu of some sort.

Itachi sweeps backwards, vanishing right before her eyes into a flock of crows. The wind jutsu sweeps through the air harmlessly, until it reaches the far wall and leaves a deep gouge in it.

And then the floor goes mushy and slimy.

_ Ew, ew, ew, _ Sakura thinks immediately, lifting her hands off the ground to look at them in disgust. Whatever is on them is  _ slimy, _ with extra slime, and it sickens her.

“You thought you could distract me with a pretty woman?” Jiraiya’s voice booms from behind her. “Guess again!”

_ If they failed, why weren’t you here sooner? _ She wants to ask, but is too busy hiding the lingering evidence of her Mokuton. If Jiraiya notices, he makes no mention of it.

And then the fight gets even more intense.

 

* * *

In the end, they find themselves sitting in the hallway panting, watching Jiraiya, Gai, and Kakashi talk a few yards away. Far enough they can’t really hear, but close enough to pick up bits and pieces. Something about the black fire that Itachi had used to blast their way free.

Sakura silently reaches out to touch Sasuke’s arm, wincing at the way he wrenches it away automatically. He hesitates for a second, then offers her the arm without a word. She gently takes it, healing it slowly. 

“Sakura.” Naruto asks in a surprisingly serious voice, and she looks up to see his expression is much the same. “You did that with the wood, didn’t you?” He asks, too quietly for the others to hear, but loud enough to reach her and Sasuke across the hallway.

She bites her lip, hesitating automatically before nodding. “I did. Sasuke has the Sharingan, you have… your chakra.... And I have the Mokuton.”

“Kekkei genkai. Unseen in anyone but the Shodai.” Sasuke explains before Naruto can even ask.

Sakura blushes a bit and ducks her head, focusing on the healing. “Whoa.” Naruto says quietly. “That’s awesome, Sakura-chan. How long have you had it?”

“I awoke it, um…” S he pauses, thinking back. “Since the tower in the Exams. In the Forest of Death. I didn’t  _ know _ until after the preliminaries, though.”

“Wow.” Naruto breathes out, blinking at her. After a long minute, he clears his throat awkwardly. “I, uh. I have the Kyūbi sealed in me.”

“I know.” Sakura and Sasuke say at the same time.

Then they stop and blink at one another.

“When?” Sakura asks.

“The fight against Gaara. Transforming into the Kyūbi was kind of a dead giveaway.”

“I knew since I felt the chakra when you fought Haku,” Sakura tells Naruto, who stares at them both with wide eyes. 

“And… you don’t care?” 

“Do you care that I have the rarest Kekkei Genkai in existence?”

“No.”

“Do you care that Sasuke has the Sharingan and can copy all your jutsu?”

“No…”

“Then why would we care?” Sakura demands, frowning at him. “You’re too cute to be insecure, cut it out.”

He blinks rapidly at her and Sasuke, saying nothing for a very long minute.

“...Wow.” He says, eventually.

 

* * *

 

 

Sasuke goes back to glaring at walls after the conversation ends, and eventually, Sakura finishes healing his arm and stands up. “Kakashi-sensei, I’m done.” She tells him, interrupting the quiet conversation. “Sasuke’s arm’s healed.”

“You healed bone that quickly?” Jiraiya asks, blinking rapidly at her.

“She healed my mind in thirty minutes.” Kakashi adds with a hint of a gleam in his eye.

It makes her suspicious.

“Thirty minutes? After Itachi’s genjutsu?”

“Thirty minutes.” Kakashi confirms.

Jiraiya stares at her intently for an uncomfortable moment. “Thirty minutes. Huh.” He pauses for a long moment, then looks at her again. “How do you feel about joining Naruto and I on our little trip? There’s a woman I’d love for you to meet.”

Now the gleam is in  _ his _ eye, too.

After a second of consideration, Sakura folds her arms across her chest. “Not without Sasuke. Team Seven stays together.”

“Thanks.” Kakashi mutters and she throws him a dirty look.

Jiraiya looks upwards for a long minute of thought before sighing heavily and nodding. “I’ll take Sasuke if you insist, but it would be better for him to go back to Konoha.”

“Why’s that?” Sakura demands sharply.

“Because there’s someone there who can help him with his curse seal, remember? She’ll be able to teach him a lot more than I can.”

Sakura bites her lip, suddenly remembering their conversation about Anko, the demented teacher during the Chūnin Exams. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea… Anko didn’t seem very… stable.” She says delicately.

Kakashi snorts. Gai snickers. Jiraiya sighs.

“She’s not  _ unstable. _ Just a bit… strange, is all.”

“Strange?” Kakashi exchanges an amused look with Gai.

“I’ll go back to Konoha with Kakashi-sensei, thanks for asking.” Sasuke says dryly from behind her. She whips around, worry immediately creeping into her expression.

“I don’t want us separated.”

Surprisingly, Sasuke’s expression softens just a tiny, tiny bit. “I don’t either.” He says so quietly none of the others could possibly hear. Then he clears his throat. “I need to learn to control this curse seal. It crippled me and almost led to me dying. Almost led to Naruto dying. I won’t let that happen again.”

“Sasuke…” Sakura trails off helplessly.

“It’s fine, Sakura.” He huffs, looking annoyed now, which is much more familiar. “Go with Jiraiya-sama. I’ll stay with Kakashi-sensei and this Anko woman.”

“Alright. If you’re sure.” She gnaws her lip for a moment, then pulls Sasuke into a hug.

“Group hug!” Naruto proclaims in an instant, flinging himself onto them. Sakura staggers but Sasuke just sways and sighs loudly in annoyance. 

Sakura hesitates for a second, then lowers her forehead to Naruto’s shoulder and holds both boys close to her.

They don’t separate until it’s time to go.

* * *

“You’re changing a great many things.” The Sage says to her quietly as they spar. It’s more of a dance than a fight now, the easy chemistry between them letting their staves sing through the air.

“That’s a compliment, yeah?” Sakura questions and the Sage hums softly.

“It can be. It can also not be.” His shakujō lashes out and Sakura finds herself lying on her back, blinking up at the looming Sage. 

“Ow.”

“You’re distracted.”

“I’m  _ very _ distracted.” She corrects, and continues to lie there in silent protest. “I want to talk to you this time around. No sparring.”

“None? But you’ve progressed so well.”

“I don’t mean none at all. Just… this time. Can we just talk?” She sits up and looks at him imploringly. The Sage frowns slightly but nods, laying his shakujō across his lap.

“What do you wish to discuss, Sakura?”

“The future. My future.” She bites her lip, worrying at it as she thinks. “Tell me more about what I need to avoid.”

“I cannot tell you what to avoid. I can only tell you what will happen should you do nothing to prevent it.”

“Then tell me that.”

“That is too broad a request.” The Sage says almost reproachfully.

She blinks and frowns, wondering for a long minute of silence. “Tell me about Tsunade-shishou.”

“Hmm… an interesting and complex woman. Too much so for words. Come closer, Sakura, and I will  _ show you _ Tsunade and yourself.”

Sakura doesn’t hesitate to step closer and take the hand the Sage extends.

Memories rush through her mind, leaving her with a mild headache, and she pulls back and sits down to digest the new memories.

Her and Tsunade meeting for the first time, hovering over a comatose Sasuke.

Her begging the woman to train her to be a medic-nin like her, so she could finally stop being useless to her teammates. 

Her harsh training, leaving her bruised and battered, but so, so proud the first time she actually lands a punch on the woman. 

Shattering her first boulder with a single punch.

Breaking the ground with her heel.

Tsunade watching her through it all, nodding approvingly.

Tsunade teaching her the basics of the Yin seal, and then the complexities to make one herself.

A purple diamond forming on her forehead for the first time, in the middle of a warzone-

“Ah. Too much.”

A gentle touch on her forehead.

The ache immediately eases, and Sakura feels like she can breathe again. “What was that? What did I just see?” She asks, surprised to find tears running down her face.

“The end of all things, Sakura-chan.” The Sage says quietly.

“You haven’t called me chan in months.” Sakura says weakly and the Sage smiles sadly at her.

“You haven’t needed to hear it in months.”

A small sob escapes her for some reason, and she lifts a shaking hand to cover her mouth.

“You saw too much. I apologize. I took some of it back, but I can’t remove it all. You saw your Yin Seal forming, and that’s ingrained in you forever. I can only hope you forgive me.”

“Of course I do.” Sakura says shakily. “Of course I do. But what do you mean, the end of all things?”

“That’s enough for tonight, Sakura.” He says gently. “For now, rest. We’ll discuss more later. In three days, I would think.”

“Three days?” Sakura echoes, then nods. “Three days. We’ll practice and talk.”

“And practice talking while practicing.” The Sage says with a slightly playful gleam in his eyes. Sakura can’t help but smile a little at that.

“Yes.” She agrees and he nods. 

“Go and rest, Sakura. Think over your memories. You’ll be meeting Tsunade soon. Brace yourself - she’s a very different woman now than the one you knew.”

“I understand.” She says quietly, bracing herself. A moment later, the world goes black, and Sakura opens her eyes to find herself back in the hotel room.

 

* * *

 

The Sage was right to warn her to brace herself.

Tsunade was a shell of the woman she once adored, barely coherent under all the sake she’d been drinking before their arrival. Shizune sits beside her, looking younger than she’d ever seen her. Jiraiya, Naruto and her squeeze into one side of the booth they’re sitting in, 

Jiraiya asks her to become Hokage, she casually says no, and Sakura leans away just in time to avoid Naruto’s flailing arm. She covers her ears with her hands, muffling the explosive yelling from the boy. “You said we came here for an interview, yet you ask her to become Hokage?! And she says  **no** ?!”

“Calm down.” Jiraiya says, much more patiently than he usually is. “Tsunade-hime is the only person who can become the Hokage. She’s the reason we won the Second Shinobi War. No one has ever been able to use her jutsus.”

_ Wrong, _ Sakura thinks a little smugly, recalling the memories the Sage had opened to her inquiring mind. 

“And she’s also the Shodai’s granddaughter, making her the perfect person to become Hokage.”

“Her?! Ho kage?!”

“This decision was made by the top counselors in Konoha. You have no say in this.” Jiraiya tells him firmly.

Naruto falls silent and Sakura tentatively pulls her hands from her ears. Shizune looks mildly amused. Tsunade continues to stare at her cup of sake.

“This kid is worse than your last apprentice, in terms of looks, intelligence, and speech.”

“HEY! What’s that supposed to mean?!” 

“Well it’s tough to compare anyone to the Fourth.” Jiraiya cuts in with a chuckle. “He was one of the best shinobi to ever come from Konoha.”

“And yet even he died quickly.” Tsunade points out quietly. “Died saving Konoha. But life is different than money. It can’t be gambled away so easily. Whoever is willing to put it at risk like that is an idiot. My grandfather and uncle are the same way. They were so focused on bringing peace that they died before their dreams could come true.”

“You’ve changed a lot.” Jiraiya says, and it feels like an understatement. In fact, Sakura feels vaguely ill at this Tsunade and her bitter drunkenness.

Her Tsunade had drinking problems too, but nothing that would put Konoha at risk. Never that.

“Well, I’m fifty now, Jiraiya. Age changes people.” She says, then smirks. “It was the same for Sarutobi-sensei. No wonder he died. He was too old to live in his dreams anymore.”

Jiraiya grits his teeth at that, looking affected by the conversation for the first time.

“Being Hokage is a joke. No one but an idiot would ever do it.”

At that proclamation, Naruto lunges with a screech.

Sakura covers her ears again and waits out the storm.

 

 

* * *

 


	15. Chapter 15

Sakura sits against a tree, watching Naruto attempt the Rasengan over and over again. 

_ The necklace of death, _ she reflects on Shizune’s story, frowning and nibbling on her lower lip.  _ The necklace of death, _ Shizune had said, but Sakura knew that wasn’t right. It hadn’t killed Naruto. It was just bad luck, nothing more.

_ Really _ bad luck, to be fair.

But she believed it was a curse and still wanted to risk Naruto getting it, which unnerved her.

The Tsunade she knew in her memories would never be so callous.

In fact, the Tsunade she knew would probably kick this Tsunade’s ass for half the stuff she’s said or pulled. 

So it was eerie, and disturbing, to look at this Tsunade and remember  _ her _ Tsunade.”Slow down, Naruto, you’re about to pass out.” Sakura warns absently.

“Am not!” He argues.

He passes out five minutes later.

Sakura walks over to him with a sigh, then swings him up awkwardly onto her back and flickers her way to their hotel room.

* * *

 

It takes him a day to wake back up, which simply isn’t fair. Normal people take a  _ week _ to get up and moving around after chakra exhaustion. Naruto bounces back so fast it’s like it never even happened.

Her healing had helped a bit, though it had drawn Shizune’s attention.

“You have a mentor?” She asked curiously as Sakura hovered over Naruto.

“No. I’m self-taught.” She explained and Shizune nodded, looking even more intrigued.

“It’s hard to learn healing ninjutsu, especially without a mentor.”

“I managed.” Sakura shrugged absently, mending the fried chakra points in Naruto’s hand. “This jutsu is dangerous. Everytime he messes up, his chakra points get damaged.” Sakura said worriedly, gnawing her lip. 

“It’s alright, Sakura-chan.” Shizune said with confidence. “We can heal him whenever he needs it. Besides, he’s going to master it in just a few more days.”

“You really think so?” Sakura asked in surprise, looking up at her, and Shizune had offered her a small smile.

“I do. I’ve seen him training.” A small shiver ran through Sakura at that, though she tried to hide it. “He’s determined, and progressing rapidly.”

Sakura relaxed a bit when Shizune hadn’t gone on.

Naruto was practicing on trees and rocks, and Sakura was practicing her Mokuton on healing the damaged trees.

Luckily, Shizune must not have seen it. 

Sakura vowed to not do it anymore, just in case.

Even if it did bother her to feel the trees in pain.

 

* * *

 

Things go to hell so quickly, so suddenly, that Sakura can barely keep up. 

One minute they’re resting in the hotel room, the next Jiraiya is bursting in and staggering all over the place. “She drugged me,” He says grimly. “We need to move. Before it’s too late.”

And so they do, rushing through the village until they reach what looks like a battleground. Destroyed walls and buildings surround them and Jiraiya grins. “Tsunade-hime’s work, no doubt.”

“She said no.” Shizune says in relief. “I was worried…”

“She’d never work with Orochimaru.” Jiraiya says with confidence. “Now let’s find where they went.”

“Tonton?” Shizune questions the small piglet she carries around. Tsunade’s coat lies on the ground and the piglet approaches it, sniffing loudly before squealing and rushing away. They follow them to a small plain, where Tsunade is fighting Orochimaru and…

And Kabuto.

Betrayal rushes through Sakura at the sight of the boy from the Chūnin Exams. “Kabuto?” Naruto demands, shocked.

“Hello, Naruto-kun.” Kabuto says with a smug little smirk. 

“It doesn’t matter who he is!” Tsunade proclaims, rushing forward to attack.

Kabuto swipes out his kunai, and in one swift move, cuts his own wrist.

Blood sprays over Tsunade, who freezes immediately. Kabuto lashes out, sending her flying backward, and Shizune hastily catches her mentor. 

“Hey! What the hell’s going on?! Why is Kabuto fighting Tsunade?”

“You’re so slow, Naruto-kun. That’s why Sasuke is so much better.” Kabuto sneers.

“Hey!” Sakura barks, bristling, and Kabuto glances at her. 

“I have concluded something from your data. Unlike Sasuke-kun, neither of you have any talent to become a shinobi.” Kabuto’s stare darts between the two and Sakura bites her lip, hesitating.

“Sakura-chan?” Naruto asks in a low growl.

“Yeah?”

“Formation B.” 

Sakura’s eyes glint as she nods, flickering away. Naruto charges at Kabuto with a feral scream and Sakura attacks from behind, chakra-coated hand ready to sever the man’s spine.

Kabuto twists, grabbing her by the wrist and thrusting her at Naruto, who hastily dodges her glowing hand. He punches Kabuto hard in the face, freeing Sakura, but the man recovers so fast they don’t have a chance to use the moment to their advantage. “Plan C!” Sakura cries, leaping away.

Naruto covers Kabuto in clones and Sakura pulls free her bō, twisting the end to unlock the sword hilt hidden against the wood. She draws it with a quiet  _ shink _ and waits.

The clones don’t last long, and when they’re down to half, Sakura lunges.

She bursts through the remaining clones and stabs Kabuto in the back, through his shoulder and just over his heart.  _ Aorta, _ she hopes before smashing her shortened bō into his lower back. He staggers forward, the sword coming out, and Naruto kicks Kabuto in the chin.

The man tumbles backwards, but before Sakura can stab him again, he twists.

His glowing hand brushes against her left bicep, and the arm  _ drops. _ “What the-” She questions, but his punch to the gut sends her flying. She smacks into a tree, grunting in pain as the air is knocked from her lungs.  _ Shit that hurt, _ she reflects, watching Naruto fight Kabuto with a relentless fury.

She pushes herself upright and winces. Her bicep throbs and her arm is limp, so she reaches up with her free hand and presses it against the damaged area.  _ Severed muscles. What an ass, _ she reflects as she heals the damage. She shoves herself to her feet a moment later, charging back in.

Only for Kabuto to leap away, blood running down the arm she’d wounded, and flicker to Orochimaru’s side. “What the hell?” Naruto demands, but Jiraiya cuts in front of him before he can charge after the man. 

“He’s on a completely different level, kid. I’m not going to lie - I’m surprised you were able to wound him.”

“It wasn’t me, it was Sakura-chan.” Naruto huffs and Jiraiya glances at her as she flickers to Naruto’s side. 

“Are you hurt?”

“Just bruises.” Naruto informs her distractedly. “What are they doing?”

“From the looks of it?” Jiraiya says uneasily. “Summoning jutsu. Stay back, you’ll be useless now, and I really mean that. Now get back to Tsunade, protect her.”

Sakura doesn’t hesitate to go, but when Naruto does, she snags his hand. “Come on. They’re on a different level than us, Naruto.” She murmurs to him.

He grimaces but follows her to Shizune and Tsunade’s side. The woman is still paralyzed even as Shizune methodically wipes the blood from her body. 

Chakra rushes through the air and Sakura looks back to see twin, giant snakes towering over them all. “Don’t worry.” Jiraiya makes quick hand signs and bites his thumb. “Two can play at…” He trails off as he slaps his hand to the ground. “...that game.” He finishes in a lackluster tone.

A tiny frog sits in front of him.

“Fuck.” Jiraiya declares.

“I’ll try!” Naruto declares, making the same movements. He slaps his hand down, and yet again, a tiny frog appears.

“...It was a good try?” Sakura suggests.

“What are you doing out here, Gamutatsu?” Jiraiya’s toad asks.

“Ah! Gamukichi! This is my first summoning, but I’ll try my best!”

“We’re screwed.” Sakura bemoans, reaching up to rub at her forehead.

In another life, she could summon a huge Katsuyu to fight back.

In this life, she has no such knowledge, and not the chakra for it either.

But…

Chakra…

Sakura looks up just in time to see one of the giant snakes lunging. She grabs Naruto by the sleeve and leaps away, Shizune carrying Tsunade, and the snake slams into the dirt instead.

“Oi! I’m your opponent!” Jiraiya roars, slapping his hands to the ground. The snake sinks into a suddenly appearing tar pit, but before Sakura and Naruto can do anything, they’re distracted by Kabuto rushing for Tsunade.

Sakura immediately lunges after him, Naruto at her side, and Kabuto slams a glowing hand into Shizune’s chest. Shizune lets out a cloud of poison gas that Sakura has to yank Naruto away from, and they jump back to avoid getting caught in the attack. Kabuto vanishes in the dark mist, but reappears a moment later behind Shizune, glowing hands grasping Shizune’s ankles. She drops to her knees and Sakura swings into battle. Her sword sings through the air, but Kabuto sweeps out of the way, glowing hand lashing out.

She barely dodges it, the hand grazing the crook of her neck, but her sword buries into his gut. Kabuto grunts, staggering back, and Naruto’s on him in an instant. The Rasengan swirls in his palm and he gets so close to landing the blow, but Kabuto moves at the last second. “Damn it!” Sakura curses, sweeping out her bō half to strike the backs of Kabuto’s knees.

He staggers, but twists and lashes out.

His fingertips brush against her chest and she sways for a moment, chest seizing.  _ What… _

She doesn’t have much time to wonder, because a moment later, she’s lying on her back and struggling to breathe.

“I severed the muscles around your lungs. You’ll suffocate soon enough.” Kabuto says in that quietly smug voice of his.

“Sakura!” Naruto cries out, then roars and charges at Kabuto.

Hot, boiling chakra fills the air, making her skin itch and ache at the force of it. She blinks stupidly up at the sky, trying to breathe but not quite managing it.

_ Heal, _ she tells herself, hand trembling as she raises it. She places it against her chest, healing chakra flowing in.  _ Oh, fuck. _

The damage is bad, but not so bad she can’t heal it. 

She thinks, at least. 

In the end, she passes out before she’s done.

 

* * *

 

 

She wakes up to Tsunade hovering over her with a small frown. “You’re good.” She says by way of hello. Sakura sits up to find herself still in the field, Kabuto and Orochimaru nowhere to be found, with Shizune helping Naruto up a few feet away. “Not as good as me, but way too good for your age. Who taught you?”

“I’m self taught.” Sakura says, and it feels eerie to say that to the person who  _ actually _ taught her. “I lived, didn’t I?”

“Well we aren’t dead, so yes.” Tsunade says dryly. “I healed you the rest of the way. Mild case of oxygen deprivation. You healed yourself enough to stay alive. Good job.”

“Thanks.” Sakura says a tad bit uncertainly. 

“I’ve accepted the position of Hokage.” Tsunade says in a serious tone. Sakura blinks rapidly at her. “Shizune and I will make our own way there. Find me some time in Konoha, we’ll see how good your skills really are.”

“I work in the hospital. I’m pretty skilled.”

“Lots of idiots work in the shinobi hospital. Don’t think it makes you special.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“No. Which is why I said seek me out.”

“Then I  _ am _ special.” Sakura argues and Tsunade rolls her eyes.

“Keep it up and I’ll take back my offer.”

“I want to learn how to use your seal.” Sakura tells her and Tsunade pauses at that, frowning at her.

“You saw that?”

No, she’d been unconscious. “Yes.” She lies. 

“Only my apprentices get to learn that, Sakura. Impress me enough and maybe we’ll talk about it.” 

Sakura nods and the woman does too, then stands and walks over to Jiraiya. Naruto is immediately on her, hovering anxiously. “You okay?”

“I’m fine now. You?”

“Fine now too. Kabuto took out my heart.”

“My lungs.” Sakura compares and Naruto snorts.

“What an asshole.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m gonna kill him the next time we see him. He betrayed Konoha, almost killed you and Sasuke…” Naruto shakes his head, hands fisted at his side. “I won’t let it go.”

“Naruto…” Sakura trails off helplessly and he shakes his head again. 

“I mean it, Sakura.” He says with eyes that burn fiercely. “I won’t let it happen again.”

“Naruto, I can look after myself. I don’t need you to protect me.”

“We need to get stronger.”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t use your Mokuton.”

“I was ordered not to.” Sakura explains quietly. “By the Hokage. It’s meant to be secret for as long as possible. Orochimaru… if he knew… he’d experiment on me.”

Anger flares even stronger in Naruto’s eyes. 

“I won’t let that happen, Sakura-chan.  _ Ever.” _ He swears fiercely.

Warmth fills her at that proclamation and she smiles fondly at her closest friend.

“I know, Naruto.” She promises. “I know.”


	16. Chapter 16

The minute they return to Konoha, Sakura hunts down Sasuke. 

She finds him in a training ground with Anko across from him, the pair fighting without a single hint of the curse seal appearing on Sasuke’s neck.

Sakura watches for a moment, her chest constricting.

The other Sasuke had embraced the curse seal and its promise of power. This one is actively fighting it off, and the proof is right before her eyes.

She blinks rapidly, tears of sheer relief welling up, and before she can think twice, she flings herself at the two sparring people. Anko freezes and Sasuke looks at her in confusion until she seizes him and hugs him as tight as she can. “Sasuke!” She wails, sobbing into his shoulder.

“What?” He demands, sounding both annoyed and unnerved.

“I thought- I-...” Sakura struggles for words, then pulls back and sniffles, looking at her teammate with teary eyes. Annoyance becomes mild alarm on his expression. “We fought Orochimaru. I worried he’d come after you.”

“You what?!” Anko demands sharply. Sakura can’t take her eyes off Sasuke, but responds anyways.

“Jiraiya-sama, Tsunade-sama, Naruto and I all fought him. Kabuto was a traitor. Naruto and I almost killed him, Jiraiya-sama and Tsunade-sama almost killed Orochimaru, but they got away. I thought- I thought they might come here.” Sakura sniffles, reaching up to wipe her tears away on her hands.

_ “You _ fought Orochimaru and lived?” Anko demands and Sakura looks over at her. The woman has a wild eyed expression, almost feveriously intent. “Jiraiya and Tsunade were there?”

“Tsunade-sama’s the new Hokage.” Sakura explains.

Anko blinks at her.

Sakura returns her attention to Sasuke, whose eyebrows are pulled together now. He looks…

Calmer.

Calmer than he had before, when she’d seen him attacking Itachi with utter rage. Calmer than during the Chūnin Exams. He doesn’t look like the angry boy he’d been when they’d separated before.

“Are you okay?” Sakura asks, just to be sure.

Ah.

There’s the annoyance she’s used to. He shrugs her hand off his shoulder. “I’m fine. I’ve been training since you’ve been gone.” He adds with a small smirk.

“So has Naruto. You should see this new attack of his - it’s like the Chidori, but a little less destructive. No less fatal, though.” Sakura explains, getting a small frown for his efforts. “If it helps, that’s all he learned.”

It helps. Sasuke’s smugness returns, but so does curiosity. “And you?”

She shrugs lightly. “I’ve done the usual. Healed everyone after the battle. Healed myself.”

“Yourself?” Sasuke demands sharply.

“Kabuto wasn’t very polite.” Sakura explains, reaching up to touch her chest. It still aches, but she knows it’s phantom pain. 

Fire blazes in Sasuke’s eyes, his jaw setting. “What did he do?” He demands fiercely. 

Sakura bites her lip for a moment before explaining warily. “He cut the muscles around my lungs, and the muscles around Naruto’s heart.”

Sasuke looks past her, glaring furiously at the air. Sakura glances over his shoulder to see Anko standing there with a deep frown, looking at them with growing impatience. 

“Sasuke?” She asks quietly, refocusing on her teammate. He refocuses on her, too, still looking angry but expression softening a tiny bit. “You should get back to training. Catch up with Naruto and I at the ramen place in three hours?” She suggests.

His nose wrinkles a tiny bit at the mention if Ichiraku’s, but after a moment, he nods.

“I’ll see you there.” She gives him a quick hug, too fast for him to even hug her back, then dances away and flickers off.

She needs to find Tenzō and get some more training in.

 

* * *

 

Sakura’s sweaty and tired when she trudges into Ichiraku three hours later. She blinks in surprise when she finds Naruto and Sasuke already there, and  _ not arguing. _

“Hey.” She slides into place next to Sasuke, ignoring the curious looks they send her. Naruto silently passes a bowl of shoyu ramen at her and she grins at him in response, picking up the chopsticks and snapping them apart.

“Where’ve you been?” Naruto asks curiously and Sakura smiles, stirring her ramen. 

“Training.” She explains, nabbing a mouthful of noodles and scarfing them down. “Gotta keep up with you two somehow.” She says once she’s swallowed.

Naruto grins at her and Sasuke leans back a bit, relaxing at having her at his side. 

Poor guy has such a hard time with socialites.

“I’ll have to show you guys what I can do some time. When it’s just us and no one around to see.”

“Sounds good.” Naruto says with a grin that she wholeheartedly returns.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a week after their return that Sakura’s called into the Hokage’s office. 

_ She’s redecorated, _ is the first, stupid thought to pop into her head.

And then her eyes fall on the two chūnin vests sitting on her desk, and Shikamaru already standing in front of one.

“Hokage-sama.” Sakura greets blankly, staring at the vests.

“Sakura Haruno, Shikamaru Nara, congratulations.” Tsunade says with a half-smile. “You’re both hereby promoted to chūnin. I hope you understand what that means for you.”

Joy makes her heart skip a beat, but dread makes it sink a bit. “Just the two of us?” She asks, stepping forward to stand next to Shikamaru. “I didn’t even fight in the finals.”

“No. But you fought in the battle.” Tsunade points out, leaning back in her chair and twining her fingers together against her stomach. “Shikamaru, you showed both tactical genius and the sense of self-preservation to know when it’s time to get yourself and your team out of fatal danger.”

Shikamaru makes a soft sounds of disbelief, so quiet Tsunade probably can’t even hear it, and then the woman is looking at Sakura. “You showed the intelligence to wake up those in danger during the initial attack. You also proved capable of fighting a jinchūriki and healing your teammates at the same time. You took care of the danger on both ends. And, you proved to me that you’re more than a capable shinobi during our battle.”

Sakura blushes a bit, reaching up to touch her face. 

And then a thought hits her.

“But what about my teammates? You saw Naruto’s skills for yourself, and Sasuke’s been fighting off-” She cuts herself off, glancing at Shikamaru in alarm, but the boy doesn’t seem to have a clue what she was about to say.

“Naruto needs to work on the basic principles of being a shinobi. He’s so consumed with learning powerful jutsu that he’s forgotten the usefulness of the weaker jutsu. He also needs to work on his chakra control  _ desperately. _ As for Sasuke, he rushed off after Gaara without any backup or any plan other than to prove his worth. In doing so, he proved that he’s not responsible enough to lead a team of shinobi like a chūnin is expected to.” Tsunade says firmly, taking a breath.

“However. Given the circumstances between the two, I have every intention of promoting them after the next exam in five months.”

Relief touches her, but worry still has her biting her lip. 

Naruto will be proud of her. 

Sasuke will not.

Her hands shake infinitesimally as she reaches out to take the vest. Shikamaru does the same, and he shrugs it on while she hesitates.

She’s wearing a crimson red kimono-style dress that reaches mid-thigh and black shorts under that.

The green vest would look  _ ridiculous _ on top of that.

As if reading her mind, Tsunade sends her an amused look. “You don’t  _ have _ to wear the vest, especially since you’re a medic-nin. They have specialised belts instead for carrying medical supplies. I’d stop by the hospital and request one if I were you.”

Relief has her grinning at the woman, nodding and bowing quickly.

“Dismissed.” Tsunade says with a small flap of her hand.

They leave the room, pausing to exchange looks. 

“Chūnin, huh?” Shikamaru says with an already tired expression. “This is going to be exhausting.”

“Yep. All that responsibility.” Sakura says, her heart racing in her chest. Nerves and anticipation in one.

“Ino’s going to kill me.”

“Sasuke’s going to hate me.” Sakura commiserates.

“Chōji will be happy.”

“Naruto will be happy for me, too.”

“Our teammates are pains in the asses.”

“Yep.”

“Fuck.”

“Uh-huh.”

And with that, they turn and go their separate ways.

 

* * *

 

 

Sakura doesn’t ever put on the vest. Instead, she takes Tsunade’s advice and goes to the shinobi hospital, where they give her a black belt with pouches on all sides. She wraps it around the small of her waist, replacing the ribbon that had previously held her kimono-style dress in place.

It fits well enough and the pockets are practically endless. Her next stop is a shinobi shop, where she buys all sorts of supplies - from bandages to senbon to poisons and cures.

And then she heads to their training ground, dread filling her steps.

Her team is already there - she’s an hour late in Kakashi time - and smiles meekly at the three. Kakashi is immediately beaming at her, patting her head and jostling the hitai-ate in her hair. “Congratulations, Sakura-chan.”

“Congratulations?” Naruto asks, perking up immediately. “What for?”

“Sakura-chan here was just made a chūnin.”

The clearing goes utterly still for a long minute. Sakura blushes at her staring teammates.

It’s Naruto, of course, who breaks the silence. “Wow! Congratulations, Sakura-chan!” He cries out, hugging her tightly, but she can see the disappointment in his gaze before he does. 

Sasuke just stands there, glaring at the ground.

“I asked Tsunade-sama why she didn’t promote you two, too. Do you want to know?” She asks warily, Naruto pulling back and eyeing her for a moment before nodding. “Naruto, she says you need to work on your basic skills and not just strong jutsu. Your chakra control is shit. I’m sorry, but it really is.” Sakura admits.

To her relief, his lips quirk slightly. 

“Sasuke,” She turns her attention to the other boy, who looks up at her with an agitated expression. “She says you need to work on teamwork more. You rushed off to fight Gaara without waiting for any of us, and then you did it again when you… when you heard about Itachi.” Sakura winces at the mention, and at the glare it earns her. “Sorry.” She says, a bit meekly.

“It’s not her fault.” Naruto instantly defends her, nostrils flaring, and Sasuke’s glare shifts to him. “It’s not! Sakura did great! She healed us both and knocked Gaara awake with her staff! She deserves a promotion!”

“I also fought Temari a nd Kankuro before I got to you guys.” Sakura adds quietly.

“Oh.” Naruto blinks at her, realization dawning. “So  _ that’s _ why you were covered in blood.”

“You never thought to ask?” Kakashi questions, frowning.

“It was a weird day, okay?” Naruto snaps, huffing. “But you shouldn’t be mad at her! Be proud! Our teammate, a chūnin!” Naruto jabs a finger accusingly at Sasuke, who glares harder.

“Fight me.” He commands.

Naruto blinks.

“Sasuke…” Sakura starts to say uneasily.

“Fight me. Prove you’re stronger.”

“Don’t you listen?” Kakashi sighs, snapping his book shut and pushing away from the tree he’d been leaning on. “Obsession with power is part of the problem. It doesn't matter who is stronger than anyone else. It’s a matter of who has the strongest teamwork. Do you think the Sannin got their name for individual strength? No! They got it for their teamwork. The Three Sannin, not the one.”

“How am I supposed to get strong enough to fight Itachi with you two holding me back?” Sasuke demands.

“You aren’t.” Sakura cuts in firmly, meeting his glare with a confident stare. She crosses her arms and stares him down.  _ “We _ will fight Itachi. Together. You can kill him if you like, but we’ll be right there with you.”

“Yeah!” Naruto crows instantly. “We’ll help you, teme. We’ll take Itachi and his stupid fish friend out together.”

“Kisame.” Kakashi says suddenly.

“...Eh?” Naruto asks, all three of them looking at him.

“The ‘fish friend’. His name’s Kisame. One of the Seven Swordsmen of Kirigakure.”

“Oh.” Sakura blinks at this new information, then shrugs and looks at her teammates.

One of whom is still glaring, though now at the ground.

“Hm. I have an idea.” Kakashi says suddenly. “You want to win against someone stronger than you? Work together. Fight to kill me.”

Sakura blinks.

Naruto gapes for a second.

Sasuke looks up with a frown. 

“You want us to fight you?”

“I want you to try to kill me.” Kakashi corrects. “Don’t worry, you won’t succeed - but you should practice, you’re right. So. Let’s practice. Catch me if you can.”

And with that, he flickers away.

There’s a momen t where they all stand there.

Then Sakura looks at her two teammates. “Get him!” She cries out, and charges after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, Sasuke. Ever the superiority complex. But at least he's getting better.


	17. Chapter 17

They catch Kakashi, but they don’t beat him.

Of course they don’t. The asshole pulls out his magical eyeball and it’s all downhill from there. It does wonders for their teamwork, but they still lose pretty pathetically.

“I need to learn to fight the Sharingan.” Sakura tells the Sage that night.

“I can’t help you with that.”

“You can. Let me practice fighting you without looking at your eyes.”

“The Sharingan doesn’t quite work like that.” The Sage says and Sakura looks at him blankly. “You’ve forgotten this, but Itachi can use the Sharingan without meeting eyes. He’s exceptionally skilled. He needs only to point at you to activate a genjutsu.”

“Well.” Sakura pauses to mull that over for a moment. “Shit.”

“Indeed.” 

“What do I do, then?” She asks, sitting down on the ‘floor’ and looking up at him questioningly.

“You don’t attack him, of course. Itachi is a man of peace. He does not willingly harm anyone.”

“He attacked us.”

“He tried to take Naruto peacefully.” The Sage corrects.

“He kills jinchūriki.” Sakura argues and the Sage pauses, frowning down at her.

“You shouldn’t remember that.”

“What?” Sakura blinks, taken aback. “I shouldn’t?”

“No. Tell me more of what you remember.”

“I remember them taking Gaara. And Gaara being Kazekage. They take him and they kill him. I remember…” Sakura trails off, brow furrowing. “I remember and old woman saving his life. She used a…” She looks down at her hands. “A jutsu of some sort.”

“Forgive me for this.” The Sage says quietly before tapping her on the forehead.

Sakura blinks rapidly, staring at her hands for a moment longer before looking up at the Sage. “Forgive you for what?”

“I took away a memory you shouldn’t have. What do you remember of Gaara, Sakura?”

Her brow furrows, an intense sense of deja vu coming over her. “I remember him being Kazekage and the Akatsuki taking him.”

“And nothing else?”

“No, just…” She hesitates, feeling  _ something, _ but it slips through her fingers like sand. “No. Nothing.”

“Good.” The Sage says gently. “You shouldn’t. You’re living a second life, Sakura. They overlap too much. If you remembered your old life in full, you’d never be able to tell what is the old world and the new.” He says grimly. “You’d lose your sense of self.”

“That… sounds unpleasant.” Sakura admits and he nods. 

“Indeed. Now. Let us spar. You have excess energy to burn.”

“I’ve been sparring all day.” Sakura complains, even as she stands up and draws her staff. “I need to practice using the sword. May I?”

“You may.”

She draws the sword from the staff, swinging it in her right hand and keeping the half-staff in her left. “Ready.”

“Then let us begin.”   
  


 

* * *

 

“Sakura!” The pounding on her window wakes her up with a jolt. Naruto sits perched outside, looking just short of outright panic. Sakura throws her sheets off and rushes to the window, unlocking it, and Naruto slides it open before she can. “Get dressed and meet us at the gates asap. Sasuke’s been kidnapped.”

 

* * *

 

 

There’s six of them. Kiba, Neji, Shikamaru, Naruto, Chōji, and herself. “I’ll be leading this mission.” Shikamaru explains on their arrival. “Sakura is my second.”

Nerves itch at her, but Shikamaru lays out a solid plan before they can really bother her.

Then they’re off and moving.

 

Chōji is the first to go.

 

Neji is the second.

 

Kiba is third.

 

Shikamaru is fourth.

 

And then Sakura comes last.

  
They corner the box carrying Sasuke and the man guarding it. “My name is Kimimaro.” He says in a flat, emotionless voice. “Who are you?”

“I’m Naruto Uzumaki, and I’m going to kick your ass!”

“Sakura.” She offers with a small, jaunty wave. 

Naruto starts the fight by filling the valley with clones, and Sakura stands back to observe with Naruto’s original form. “He’s strong in taijutsu, but I’m not seeing any ninjutsu.” She murmurs to him, though it’s hard to tell under the mass of clones. Naruto doesn’t say anything and she glances sideways at him to see the marks on his face have thickened and lengthened. “Naruto?” She asks, and his slitting eyes dart towards her for an instant before refocusing ahead.

“He’s using bones.” Naruto grits out though she’s not sure how he can tell through the chaos. “His own bones as a weapon.” 

Her nose wrinkles at that thought. “Bone can be softened. I can try to do that, but I’d have to get close enough to touch him.”

“No way.” Naruto shakes his head as more of his clones go flying. “His taijutsu’s too good.” He pauses, then huffs out a breath. “What we really need is Lee right now.”

“I’m good at taijutsu. Better than you, remember?” Sakura points out, reaching back to draw her staff. 

The last of the clones are rapidly dwindling in number. 

“Get ready.” She warns. “Buy me an opening.” 

“Yeah, I’ll-”

He trails off at the sudden rush of malevolent chakra. The last clone dies and they can see, all too clearly, a plume of black mist exuding from the coffin holding Sasuke. “It’s time.” Kimimaro announces, relaxing his arm - which does, indeed, wield a bone sword. 

The lid breaks open and Sasuke rises up, looking twisted for a moment. His white and black hair shrinks from waist length to normal color and size, and his skin lightens where it had been dark. “Sasuke!” Naruto cries out urgently. “Come back here! Let’s get the hell out of this place!”

Sasuke…

Sasuke laughs.

A harsh, grating laugh. Mocking and  _ cruel. _

“Sasuke…” Sakura whispers, reaching out automatically to take Naruto’s hand. Their fingers twine and they grip each other almost painfully. “Sasuke!” Sakura shouts, pleadingly.

Sasuke turns, and in the blink of an eye, he’s lunged forward. Kimimaro barely has enough time to lift his sword, which Sasuke ducks under at light speed. He punches the man in the stomach, sending the Sound-nin sliding backwards. 

_ Yes! _ Sakura thinks before she charges in, Naruto at her side. She untangles their hands at the last second, and while Sasuke faces Kimimaro head on, Naruto goes for the side, and Sakura swings her bō at the back of Kimimaro’s head.

She doesn’t expect Kimimaro to spin around, bones stabbing out like a porcupine. Three of them cut deep into her abdominal tissue, but she ignores it, her bō smashing down into Kimimaro’s shoulder. He jerks back and to the side, slipping free of them with a gash to his arm and undoubtedly a good amount of pain in his shoulder. 

“Sasuke, you’re-”

“KONOHA SENPUU!” Lee screeches before flying over their heads and kicking Kimimaro right in his face.

“What the-”

“Lee?!” Sakura exclaims, shocked, and then turns to Naruto and Sasuke. “Go back and help the others. Lee and I will handle this.” Sakura urges sharply. 

“But-”

_ “GO,  _ Naruto!” Sakura cries, shoving at him. He winces and steps back, and Sakura turns just in time to avoid a bone sword to her face. She smacks it away with her bō, shooting Sasuke and Naruto a glare.

“Go!”

Sasuke hisses and turns to leave, rushing out of the area. Kimimaro immediately tries to chase after but Sakura gets in the way, catching his bone sword with her staff. The wood cracks, but holds steady. “Steel lining.” She says with a smirk, then ducks down and slams the butt of the staff into his gut.

Kimimaro staggers and Lee lunges, the pair exchanging a flurry of attacks, and Sakura risks a glance back to see Naruto and Sasuke disappearing into the tree line. She smiles tightly and turns back, leaping into the fray. “You tried to take my teammate from me.” She snarls, attacking him from one side while Lee attacks the other. “Instead, you just made him a stronger opponent.”

Kimimaro thrusts a hand out at her and Lee, and Sakura barely dodges the bone that would’ve impaled her head. Instead it scrapes her cheek, leaving a deep gash in her face. “Try again.” She mocks before dancing around a bone sword. Lee lands a kick to Kimimaro’s side and Sakura jabs her bō into the nearest ankle. Kimimaro goes down on one knee, but before Sakura can feel smug about it, he glares furiously at them. 

She braces herself-

“Please wait!” Lee interjects. Kimimaro blinks, looking sideways at him, and Sakura looks at him incredulously over Kimimaro’s back. “I need to take my medicine.”

_ What the fuck? _ “Then go sit out and do it!” Sakura snaps, Kimimaro’s attention flickering back to her just in time for her to spring. She jabs her bō into the earth and propels herself off the ground, slamming her feet into Kimimaro’s chest.

Pain rushes through her so suddenly the blood drains from her face. Kimimaro catches himself with a step back, all his ribs sticking out and covered in blood.

_ Shit, _ she thinks, landing on her feet and immediately leaping away from Kimimaro. Blood sprays in her wake, gushing from the deep gashes in her ankles and feet. Small bones fly past her as she lands, a couple embedding in her right arm and left shoulder, and she straightens up to see the skin covering kimimaro’s fingertips has split open.

_ Oh,  _ **_gross!_ ** She thinks, nauseas, before reaching up. Lee staggers slightly on the other side of the valley from her, and for a moment she thinks he’s wounded, but then he lunges at Kimimaro in an unrelenting flurry. She takes the opportunity to pull the finger bone from where it had gotten stuck against her shoulder blade, while the other had gone straight through her arm. Then she crouches down and heals her ankles and feet just enough to be bearable.

“Fine. Kekkei Genkai? Two can play at that game.” Sakura huffs out and makes quick hand seals before pressing her palms to the ground. Roots spring up and grab Kimimaro’s feet, preventing him from dodging the flurry of blows to his chest and back.

Bones explode from Kimimaro’s body, like a porcupine, and Lee is forced to retreat with a spray of blood. Sakura bites her lip, holding Kimimaro’s feet as firmly as she can. The man doesn’t move, but she can’t tell if that’s his choice or not.

Sakura bites her lip anxiously before she grips the end of bō. With a quiet  _ shink, _ she draws the blade from it and readies herself. She holds the remains of her bō in a reverse grip, then takes a breath and charges.

Kimimaro waits until she’s just a few feet away before bones break through the roots and shatter them, freeing him to sweep around to face her. Both hands extended, bones shoot out. Sakura takes them in her shoulders and just under her collarbones, taking the moment to stab Kimimaro through the chest.

Bones stop the blade before it can reach the heart, and Sakura swings up with the bō to swipe at his face. He leans back to avoid it and she takes the advantage to dive away, landing next to Lee. “Are you okay?” She gasps out, lifting a hand to her chest to heal the wounds.

“Mostly.” Lee pants. “We’re outclassed.”

“You don’t sound like the Lee I know.” She says, then flashes a small smile. “You’re not an imposter, are you?”

Indignance immediately flares in his expression. He shoves to his feet and stands between her and Kimimaro, giving her some cover to heal. Blood coats her chest, breathing is a bit difficult, and it takes some work to extract the finger bones using chakra.

 

She’s almost done when the sand appears.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun duuuun.
> 
> Now the real changes begin ♪


	18. Chapter 18

The battle reaches a whole new level with Gaara’s arrival. It goes from being a bloodfest to a shitshow, with Gaara using his sand to protect her and Lee from the worst attacks.

The scale of  _ Gaara’s _ attacks makes her relieved she never had to face him in real combat.

When it’s over and all is said and done, Gaara floats them over the bone forest and lowers them to the ground and Sakura immediately scrambles for Lee. “You idiot!” She cries out, putting a hand on his abdomen to check his spine. “You could’ve been paralyzed! You could’ve broken your back! You just had a major surgery!”

“I had to help you!” Lee protests, looking so genuine it makes her heart ache. 

“Lee, I would’ve been fine.”

“You’re  _ covered _ in wounds, Sakura-san.”

“I’m a medic-nin. They’ll heal. Paralysis won’t heal, Lee.”

“I nearly paralyzed you?” Gaara cuts in, a little breathlessly - and no wonder, the boy had used  _ so much chakra _ to defeat Kimimaro. 

Lee and Sakura fall silent for a moment, exchanging awkward glances.

“Nearly. But Tsunade-sama healed me.”

“And you almost undid it.” Sakura snaps. “Idiot boy.” She pulls him into a tight hug. “You could’ve paralyzed yourself for me.” 

“It would’ve been worth it.” Lee says quietly and Sakura sniffles.

She pulls back, almost wiping at her eyes with a blood-covered hand, and turns to Gaara. He’s sitting against a tree like Lee, so she stands up and kneels in front of him. “And you.” She chokes out, ignoring the uneasy face he’s wearing. “You almost died.”

“Kimimaro died first.” Gaara says slowly.

“I’m going to hug you.”

“I’d really rather you didn’t.” Gaara informs her.

She hugs him.

His sand doesn’t stop her, and after a long minute, his hand rises to touch her back.

 

* * *

 

Gaara carries them home on a sand cloud, and Sakura helps ease the chakra drain by keeping a hand pressed to his back. Her chakra regenerates almost as fast as Naruto’s does now, thanks to the Mokuton. Gaara asks no questions and simply accepts the offer of sharing the chakra drain. Lee lays outstretched behind him, unconscious after all their work. 

“We have no right to be alive.” Sakura admits after a while of silence.

“No. But we are.”

“If he weren’t already dying, we’d be long dead by now.”

“Yes.” Gaara agrees.

“How are you?” She asks and he finally glances at her, curious and slightly confused.

“Fine. Barely a bruise.”

She remembers the way Kimimaro’s monstrous tail had broken through Gaara’s sand and sent him flying. 

“You’re healing faster than you have any right to.” Gaara notes.

So much for not noticing.

“I’m a medic-nin.” Sakura uses as a lie. “I’m healing myself.”

“Are you?” Gaara asks mildly, looking away and ahead again.

Sakura blinks at him.

“You’re a jinchūriki, aren’t you?” She asks quietly and he hums softly.

“You know that already.”

“Naruto’s one, too.”

“I know that already.”

“I have the Mokuton.” She says before she can think twice. Gaara freezes, blinking, and Sakura offers him a small smile. “Now we all know each other's greatest secrets - and strengths.” She says quietly.

“Why would you tell me that? I’m from Sunagakure.”

“We’re allies now, aren’t we? And besides. We’re friends now.”

“Friends?” Gaara echoes blankly, staring at her. 

“Friends.” She confirms. “We’re friends, Gaara. We fought and bled together. And now we’re flying together.”

Gaara stares ahead now, a strange expression on his face. “Friends…” He says quietly. “I’ve never had friends.”

“You’ve had Naruto. Now you have me, too.”

After a moment, he nods. “I would like to be friends, I think.”

“Good.” She reaches with her free hand to take his, squeezing it as they fly over the woods of the Land of Fire.

 

* * *

Naruto’s waiting at the gates with two medic-nin when they arrive. “Sakura-chan! And Gaara!” He exclaims, greeting them with a tight hug. The medic-nin quickly move Lee, heading for the closest shinobi hospital. “Is he okay?” Naruto asks instantly.

“He’s fine. Just used himself up is all.” Sakura explains.

“You’re covered in blood.”

“I’m healing myself.”

“Right.” He looks at Gaara searchingly. 

“Gaara saved Lee and I.”

“Great job.” Naruto grins at the redhead, who inclines his head. “Your siblings are inside.” He says, grin fading. “Sasuke’s in the hospital. He’s not hurt, but they’re worried about his curse seal. Neji and Chōji are… we couldn’t get to them. Not in time.” Naruto shakes his head grimly. “They’re both in critical condition. Neji’ll be alright but they don’t know about Chōji.”

“Kami…” Sakura breathes out, automatically reaching out and taking Gaara’s hand. The hand is utterly stiff in hers and after a moment she pulls it away and grabs Naruto’s hand instead. “Shikamaru and Kiba?”

“Sasuke kicked the ass of the guy fighting Kiba. Temari  _ obliterated _ the woman fighting Shikamaru. I had literally no chance to even do anything.” He huffs almost plaintively, but she can hear the undertone of worry and guilt. “Kiba got stabbed in the gut, but Shikamaru just has a broken finger.”

Sakura looks at him for a moment, then Gaara, and then away from them both. “I’m going to the hospital. Thank you again, Gaara.” She flashes him a warm smile before she flickers away, heading for the hospital.

It only takes a few flickers to reach it, where she promptly finds Shikamaru and Temari waiting just outside the ICU. “Any word?” She asks anxiously, getting twin looks of surprise and then shock.

“Kami, Sakura! You’re  _ covered _ in blood!”

“Yeah, this guy could do weird stuff with his bones. It’s fine, I healed myself. Gaara helped me out.” She nods to Temari as she says that and then sits down next to Shikamaru, seizing his wrist before he can blink. She touches his wrapped finger with her free hand, ignoring the soft hiss he gives.

“Ow.” He mutters, but she can feel him relax as the pain eases.

It takes maybe ten minutes for her to heal the stubborn bone, and she’s in the process of removing the wrapping when Tsunade steps out. “Chōji has stabilized.” She says, sitting across from them and a few feet from Temari. “The Nara Clan kept some very detailed notes on everything. It was easy to make an antidote based off the book you loaned us.”

It takes Sakura a second to realize Tsunade’s talking to Shikamaru’s father, who is lingering on the wall just outside the hall.

“Thank-”

“Tsunade-sama!” Shizune pants out, skidding into the hallway. “Neji Hyūga’s condition has stabilized!”

“Well.” Tsunade muses, frowning softly. “Not only was your mission a success, but everyone made it out alive, as well. Not bad for your first mission, Shikamaru-kun.”

“No.” Shikamaru chokes out, and Sakura looks over to see him crying. “Not bad at all.”

 

* * *

 

 

“They think your chakra is  _ volatile.” _ Naruto explains to Sasuke as they sit in a glorified quarantine room.

“It  _ is _ volatile.” Sakura points out.

“Yeah, and so’s mine.” Naruto fires back instantly. “You don’t see me locked up like some… some…  _ experiment!” _

“Calm down.” Sasuke complains. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“I’ll show you a headache, teme!” Naruto snaps, leaping forward.

Sakura grabs him by the back of his collar and wrenches him back down onto the sofa. Sasuke watches from his bed in amusement while Naruto seethes. “Be nice to the sick person, Naruto.”

“I’m not sick.” Sasuke huffs. “They just can’t figure out what’s wrong with me.”

“Yeah, not sick at all.” 

“There  _ isn’t _ anything wrong with you.” Naruto complains. “The doctors are just being stupid.”

“They’re being  _ cautious, _ Naruto. It’s different.” 

“Stupid.”

_ “Cautious!” _ Sakura snaps sharply enough that Naruto’s mouth clicks shut. “Kami, Naruto.” She huffs, folding her arms. 

A knock on the door interrupts them, and Jiraiya looms in the doorway. “Pinkie,” He beckons and she instantly glares. “The Hokage would like to see you.” He says, half amused and half serious.

The half seriousness has her tensing, brow furrowing with worry. “Yeah, sure.” She stands up, then glares at her two teammates. “No fighting! Behave!”

“Yes, moooom.” Naruto whines.

Sasuke just rolls his eyes, but there’s a fond quirk of his lips, so she nods firmly and turns to follow Jiraiya. 

They go all the way to the Hokage Tower - not the Academy, where the Hokage usually hands out orders or holds meetings, but the Tower itself.

It’s inside, in the giant living room, that Tsunade meets them. “Come in. Sit.” She urges. Jiraiya sits down and Sakura tentatively sits beside him, taking in the room with a quick glance. The woman is still only half moved in, and she’s never seen it so messy, as the woman was surprisingly meticulous with her personal space.

She blinks, looking forward, and finds Tsunade walking towards her. She crouches down and takes Sakura’s face in both hands, eyes narrowing.

Sakura stares at her in utter confusion.

Tsunade stares back with uneasy intensity, utterly silent for several minutes before she pulls back and looks at Jiraiya with a blank expression. “Her eyes are like his.” She says, almost numbly. “Our mother had green eyes.”

_ What the hell? _ Sakura wonders, gaze darting between Jiraiya’s severe expression and Tsunade’s blank one.

“You think…?”

“I think it’s possible.” Tsunade’s gaze flickers back to Sakura before she steps back and sits down across from them. “Sakura. Describe your parents for me.”

Sakura blinks at her rapidly before slowly doing so. “My mother has blonde hair and green eyes. My dad has dark pink hair and blue eyes.”

“My mother had red hair. My father had blonde.” Tsunade looks at Jiraiya as she says that, but her gaze darts to Sakura every few seconds.

After a long moment, Jiraiya and Tsunade both look at her.

“Sakura… are you adopted?”

The words make everything slot into place, and she’s so stunned she has no idea what to say. 

They think she’s somehow a Senju.

“I… no?” She offers, uncertain with this conversation. “I don’t think so. No!”

“You have eyes like my father and brother. You have hair that could come from my parents. You have an incredibly strong life force, and you can use the Mokuton. All traits of my Senju bloodline.”

“I’m not adopted!”

“You might not have to be.” Tsunade says grimly, and Sakura’s heart pounds in her ears. “Orochimaru could have experimented and used your mother as a carrier.”

“That’s not possible!” Sakura snaps, shoving to her feet. “I’m not adopted. I have parents!” And more importantly, that  _ isn’t where her Mokuton comes from. _

“Sakura, calm down.” Jiraiya urges and she whips around to glare at him. 

“Sakura, no one should have survived Kabuto’s attack on you. Yet you healed even after you fell unconscious.” Tsunade cuts in severely. “I didn’t save you,  _ your life force did.” _

“So, what? You think I’m your sister?” Sakura barks out a harsh, bitter laugh, tears stinging at her eyes. “That’s not it! My parents are my parents!”

“Listen to me, Sakura.” Tsunade says, standing up and grasping Sakura by her shoulders. Sakura looks up awkwardly past Tsunade’s bust and to her severe face. “I tested your DNA while you were unconscious. There’s no denying it. You’re absolutely related to me, and closely. You’re either my sister or my niece, if Orochimaru was twisted enough to use my brother for this experiment.”

Sakura stares at her numbly, her mind going blank.

 

_ What? _


	19. Chapter 19

“What the  _hell_  did you do?!” Sakura demands.

“What needed to be done.” The Sage says grimly. “You wouldn’t have survived the Mokuton without Hashirama’s DNA. No one can.”

“That’s- you can’t just- you can’t just  _play with someone’s DNA!_  What about my  _parents?!”_  She roars, glaring hatefully at the Sage.

“They still raised you, did they not? They still love you, and you still love them. They’re still your parents.”

“You made it so they aren’t!”

“But they are, Sakura!” The Sage says imploringly. “You must understand the gift that I have given you.”

“You took away my parents and gave me to strangers. Dead strangers. How is this a gift?”

“I gave you a new family. A legacy. And I did it in a way that allows you to maintain your old family.”

“They aren’t my old family!” Sakura snaps, stomping her foot. “They’re my only family. My  _only family!”_

“Sakura, please.” The Sage implores. “Understand why I did this. Why it was necessary. There was no other way to explain your abilities. Nothing that I could alter. I couldn’t have made you an actual experiment of Orochimaru, but I could give him dreams of experimenting on you. False memories. And I could give you DNA to match that dream by changing you before you were born. You’ve always had the potential - I just gave you the push needed to unlock the Mokuton. Without it, you could never have survived having it. Hashirama’s DNA is the only thing that keeps the Mokuton from consuming it’s wielders.”

“That doesn’t make this okay.” Sakura half-cries. “You’re taking my family away from me.”

“No one is taking your family away. Your family will still be there, even after all this. Your DNA will remain a secret known only to Tsunade and Jiraiya, and perhaps your teammates. Your parents will still be your parents in all manner of speaking.”

“My _parents,_ ” Sakura wants to sob, but catches herself. She glares at the Sage with wet eyes, refusing to let the tears fall. “You’re taking them away from me. How am I supposed to treat them like my parents, and pretend I never found out otherwise?”

“Sakura…” The Sage pauses, settling his shakujō across his lap before frowning at her. “Perhaps you need some perspective. Perhaps it’s time I tell you why you came here.”

“Came here?” Sakura echoes, brow furrowing, and he extends a hand towards her.

“Take it, Sakura, and I will show you what you’re old enough to know now.”

Sakura hesitates for a moment, the weight of the words pushing away her anger and grief. Something tells her to absolutely not, under any circumstances, take that hand of his.

So she reaches out and takes it.

And she watches the end of the world.

 

* * *

 

 

Sakura wakes up sobbing.

The rest of her day doesn’t go much better.

Her parents watch her in concern and she waves it off, hiding her grief behind a mask of calm. But calm she does not feel, and grief is an understatement.

Her entire life had fallen to shambles, and she’d chosen the ultimate sacrifice to fix things.

 _So many people dead,_  Sakura reflects as she looks out her window. It’s bright and cheery out, not at all like she feels, and people walk through the streets, oblivious to what might have come.

What might still come.

She grips her arms and suppresses a shudder, pressing the side of her head to the window.

 _I won’t let it happen again,_  Sakura decides.

_No matter what it takes._

It’s a vow she made a lifetime ago, and she makes it yet again.

_I will protect my precious people._

 

* * *

 

Sakura trains harder than she ever has in her life before. She trains non stop, until even Gai stops by and makes sure she’s okay.

She’s not, but she gives him an upside down grin as she does hand-stand push-ups and lies through her pearly white teeth.

He’s so inspired that he joins her until nightfall. “You are a dedicated and youthful kunoichi, Sakura-chan. No doubt you will become one of the best kunoichi of our times!” He cheers her on.

He’s wrong.

She’s not going to be one of the best.

She’s going to be  _the best._

 

* * *

 

 

Naruto and Sasuke are lost in their own world. Shikamaru, Chōji, Kiba and Neji are as well, all going their separate ways. It’s almost like the fights never happened, but Sakura remembers the danger all too well.

She’d used the Mokuton against Orochimaru’s prize student, and that worries her. If they had been monitoring somehow…

And then she’d gone and told Gaara about it.

She knows  _now_  that she can trust him implicitly, but she hadn’t when she’d told him. It had just slipped out like it was natural to trust him with something so huge.

She’s not surprised when he hunts her down three days later, finding her in Training Ground Three - where she basically hasn’t left except to shower. She’s even been sleeping in the training ground.

“Why would you tell me a secret like that?” Gaara questions.

Sakura, halfway through a hundred sit ups, frowns at him. “Everyone needs somebody, Gaara. Someone there so that you know you aren’t alone.” She tells him quietly. “You’re one of us now, Gaara-kun. So I trust you.”

Gaara stares at her, eyes slightly wider than usual, and says nothing.

After a while, he sits down beside her legs and brings a small amount of sand out of his gourd, swirling it slowly and intricately over his palm.

“You aren’t afraid of me at all, are you.”

“No.”

“What if I told my siblings?”

“I’d trust that you knew what you were doing.” Sakura says, though the idea makes her a little uneasy.

“I won’t tell them. But that doesn’t mean it was wise to share it.”

“No.” Sakura admits, exhaling a harsh breath as she completes another set of ten sit ups. “But it means I’m not too worried about it. I trust you, Gaara. Is that so hard to believe?” She asks quietly, pausing and propping herself up on her elbows to look at him.

He stares back at her, gaze intense. “...Yes.” He says at last. “It is difficult to believe.”

“Yet it’s the truth.”

“I know.” He says truthfully. “The only other time we’ve met, I tried to kill you.”

“And then you saved my life. I’d say we’re even, Gaara.” Sakura pauses for a moment, then looks away from him. “Without you, we might have lost Sasuke. I owe my life and my teammate to you.”

 _“Why?”_  Gaara asks warily. “Why do you owe me this? I was repaying a debt-”

“To Konoha, yes. But you more than repaid your debt to me. I owe  _you_  now, not the other way around.”

“You frustrate me.” Gaara informs her curtly, sand still swirling over his palm. “I don’t understand you.”

“That’s alright, most people don’t. In fact, Naruto’s the only one who does.” Sakura admits, frowning. “Which is frustrating, truthfully.”

“He’s the only one who understands me, as well.” Gaara shares and she blinks at him curiously.

“Your siblings?”

“Still fear me, though less so than before.”

“Well that’s progress then. And progress is always good.”

“Is it?” He arches a hairless brow. “I am still feared by my own family. Feared by my entire village. I have quite a lot of blood on my hands, Sakura-san, which is why I don’t understand how you can say you owe me anything. I have far too much to atone for.”

Sakura pauses at that, silence filling the training grounds for several tense moments.

Then she looks him square in the eye. “I forgive you for them.”

His eyes widen, then narrow. “They aren’t yours to forgive.”

“No. But  _you_  are mine to forgive. My opinion of you is mine, and mine alone, and I forgive you for your acts.”

“I’ve killed hundreds.”

“I’ve killed dozens. We’re shinobi. It happens to the best and worst of us eventually.”

“They were innocent.”

“I imagine the people I’ve killed were innocent, too, in their way. In some way, we’re all innocent.”

“Not me.” Gaara says with just a hint of bitterness now.

Sakura sits up properly, propping one arm on a raised knee, and looks at him seriously. “Naruto told me your story. Your past. You were just a child, Gaara. You were a child abused by the people and you defended yourself. You were innocent.”

“Arguably. But then I wasn’t innocent anymore.”

“And now you are again, because you’ve stopped being a mass murderer, have you not?”

Only four months had passed, but the change between Gaara from the Exams and the Gaara sitting next to her now is  _enormous._

And he has so, so much more to change in the future.

“How does one atone for the level of destruction I left in my wake?” He asks quietly, staring at her intently. For a moment she can only stare back, trapped by the seafoam eyes boring into hers.

“Gaara.” She begins severely, reaching out to carefully and slowly take his hand. “You make up for it by protecting everyone as best as you can. And one day, you’ll save the lives of those you would have hurt. One day, you’ll help so many people, they’ll forget you ever didn’t do such a thing.” She says softly.

Gaara stares at her for a very long minute before pulling his hand free and standing up. She expects him to flicker away, but he just stands there for a moment, looking ahead and not at her.

“Sakura-san.” He says calmly. “I believe you might be right. You and Naruto…” He looks down at her, and there’s the faintest touch of a smile on his lips. “You both are one in the same. Both of you have made me a better person. I shall do my best to abide by your advice.”

“Do it, Gaara. You’ll reap the rewards of your attempts to better yourself.” Sakura promises, smiling warmly at him.

After a slow nod and a glance away, Gaara vanishes in a flicker of sand.

Sakura watches the sand fall and wonders.

 

* * *

 

“I need to be the best.” She says under her breath, staring up at the sky. She’s taking a short break from practicing, and is surprised when someone looms over her.

“What are you doing.” Shikamaru asks flatly.

“Cloud gazing.” Sakura says.

There aren’t any clouds in the sky. Just blue, clear sky.

He gives her an unimpressed look. “The Hokage wants you.”

“Oh.” Sakura murmurs.

She doesn’t stand up. Shikamaru continues to stare at her.

“Like right now?” She clarifies.

“Right now.” Shikamaru confirms dryly.

“Oh, alright.” She huffs, extending her hands up at him. He silently takes them, hauling her to her feet, and she dusts the dirt off her dress and shorts. “Are you escorting me?”

“Kami no. I’m already stuck playing messenger. I’m not going back there just to get told to go somewhere else.” He mutters before offering her a half-hearted salute.

She returns it just as half-assed as his own, flashing him a small smile before flickering away.

It’s a short commute to the Hokage’s office, where she politely knocks before being beckoned inside. Tsunade sits at her desk, staring intently at Sakura as she approaches. “Hokage-sama.” Sakura bows deeply to the woman.

“Cut the nonsense.” Tsunade barks, making her jump a little before straightening. “You have the Mokuton. You’re family, one way or another.” Tsunade exhales a harsh breath, reaching up to run a hand through her hair. She presses her thumb to the purple diamond on her forehead. “You want to learn this seal, Sakura? It’s a family secret, passed down from my grandmother. The Shodai’s wife.”

“I do want to learn it, Hokage-sama.”

“Call me Tsunade.” She huffs. “I can teach it to you. But first, you have to prove you’re worthy of it.”

“How?” Sakura asks with barely concealed eagerness.

Tsunade smirks and stands up. “Come with me. We’re going to the hospital for a little test.”

 

Sakura passes with flying colors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gaara scene inspired by the song One of Us by New Politics.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed ♥


	20. Interlude

Sakura spends three months working with Tsunade, learning the intricacies of the Yin Seal. 

And then comes the day she’s been dreading for months. 

She waits by the gates, the first one there when Naruto and Jiraiya approach them. Jiraiya stops a few yards away, but Naruto comes right up and hugs her. “Don’t worry, Sakura-chan. I’ll be safe.”

“I’m going to miss you.” She says, clutching him tightly. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs as sincerely as he always is. “I don’t want to go, but I need to.”

“I know.” She mumbles into his jacket. His hideously orange jacket. She’s going to miss even that.

“Dobe.” Sasuke’s voice interrupts their moment. Sakura pulls back, tears swimming in her eyes, and both of them look at him.

“Teme.” Naruto returns almost fondly.

“You’re leaving today, then?” Sasuke muses, glancing back at Jiraiya. It’s unlike him to state the obvious, so clearly he must be bothered by this, too.

“You’ll take care of Sakura, yeah?” Naruto asks and Sakura halfheartedly punches his shoulder.

“I’ll take care of  _ him.” _ She corrects sternly, getting a grin from Naruto.

“Right. Sorry.” He says a bit cheekily.

“Don’t forget it again.” Sakura scolds.

“Won’t dream of it.” Naruto grins crookedly, nodding at her. “Teme.” He turns his attention to Sasuke. “Don’t let Orochimaru get his grubby claws on you.”

Sasuke snorts softly and Sakura looks between the two boys with a fond smile.

“We’ll stop him if he tries.” Sakura assures him, reaching out to take Sasuke’s hand. To her surprise, he lets her twine her fingers with his. 

“Focus on your own training, dobe. You need it.” Sasuke says with a dismissive sniff.

“Oi! Who’s the one that got kidnapped, huh?!”

“They got lucky.” Sasuke huffs, pulling his hand free to cross his arms. 

“Yeah, very lucky.” Sakura says dryly.

Naruto snickers, Sasuke rolls his eyes, and Sakura grins.

There’s an intense sense of bittersweetness to the situation, and she holds back tears when it comes time for Naruto to leave. She hugs him tightly, almost afraid to let him go, but she’s forced to pull away when Jiraiya clears his throat. “Three years, Sakura-chan. Teme. Just three years.” He says with a tight smile that betrays his real feelings on the matter.

Sakura returns it with a wet smile of her own, and Sasuke grunts dismissively at him. “Go on, dobe. Can’t stand around here forever.”

“Shut up, teme.” Naruto huffs, but gives Sakura one last grin before turning and leaving.

Sakura watches him go.

She feels oddly helpless.

 

* * *

 

 

_ Three years. _

 

Sakura works with Tenzō and Tsunade, practicing the Mokuton and healing ninjutsu. 

The healing ninjutsu comes naturally to her - at a pace that stuns even Tsunade. But of course it does - she’s already learned it all once before, after all. 

The Mokuton is more difficult, but she learns it at a steady, relatively quick pace. 

Sasuke trains with Anko, practicing controlling his Curse Seal, and Kakashi, learning fire and lightning jutsus under his careful guidance.

Every once in awhile, Sakura joins them and they practice teamwork without Naruto there.

There’s an ever present empty space between them all, where a loudmouthed, creative blonde would usually fill - and without him, it’s difficult at first.

But practice makes perfect, and they practice for months at a time.

Eventually, she and Sasuke move as in sync as she and Naruto did.

 

_ Three years, _ Sakura reflects.

 

And then three years becomes two. Sasuke is promoted to chūnin and they go on fewer and fewer missions with Kakashi, instead going on them with Shikamaru.

 

Two years become one.

 

Neji is the first of them to be promoted to jōnin, with Sakura and Sasuke a close step behind him.

“You’d be one too, if you were less lazy.” Sakura chides Shikamaru, looming over the cloud-gazing chūnin.

“No thank you.” He snorts softly. “I’d rather not.”

“Lazy.” Sakura scolds.

The rest of the Konoha Twelve (sans Naruto) have all become chūnin six months after Sakura and Sasuke become jōnin.

 

One year becomes six months.

 

 

Naruto comes home early.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teeny tiny short break after this chapter to plot out how we're gonna proceed from here. Expect great things, and I'll see you all again soon ♥


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